Israeli prison guards film abuse of Palestinian detainees

Israeli prison guards have taken photos and videos of their abuse of Palestinian detainees, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday. The Israeli Prison Service claimed this was part of a "routine exercise".

Palestinian prisoners have reported being subject to violence, kicking, punching blows to the testicles and other forms of severe abuse and humiliation.

According to the photos and videos obtained by Haaretz, dozens of Palestinian detainees were shown laying on their stomachs in handcuffs, some stripped of their clothing, while a combat dog barks at them.

Israeli Prison Service personnel in the security wing of Megiddo Prison handcuffed and humiliated detainees on Friday morning, according to Haaretz.

In response to the video of the detainees being abused and barked at by dogs, the Prison Service said that it "maintains an operational routine for the safety of the prison inmates and the public. In this case, too, in an operation that includes intelligence [gathering], soldiers of the ‘Nachshon’ unit…raided terrorist cells, searched them and seized assault weapons and prohibited materials."

However, the service failed to produce any evidence that backed up their claims and did not show assault weapons allegedly seized in the operation.

Since the start of Israel’s war on 7 October, there has been an increase in violence against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, with many of them being beaten by guards and forced to sing songs while handcuffed as a form of humiliation.

"They take us to a ‘blind spot’ where there are no cameras, and ‘welcome’ new prisoners by given them a beating" one prisoner testified in court in December.

Others described being forced to wear the same clothes for weeks, including underwear.

A senior member from the Prison Service also told Haaretz that the organisation is aware of the violence detainees face.

Sexual abuse in prisons

Earlier this week, a shocking new case of sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards was reported, in the latest in a series of accusations of torture and ill-treatment against Palestinian detainees at the hands of Israeli authorities.

A Palestinian man held in Israel’s Ketziot prison has been subjected to repeated violence and torture by Israeli guards while in custody, the detainee’s lawyer said.

The man, who was only being identified as 'S', is from the occupied West Bank town of Qalqilya and was first sentenced in 2004 for allegedly belonging to the military wing of Hamas.

Lawyer Weaam Baloum said that S had been "repeatedly tortured and humiliated" since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October.

The prisoner was sexually abused and violently hit by guards who jumped on his back and inserted objects into his anus, according to a report in Haaretz.

Last month, Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem published a detailed report outlining what it said was Israel’s systemic abuse and torture of Palestinians held in its prisons.

Rights groups say the abuse has surged since the Gaza war with Israeli guards "waging a war of revenge" on the prisoners.