By Latheef Farook

Demonstrating its cruel and evil nature sadistic form of torturing Palestinians has been underway in Israeli prisons ever since the artificial state of Israel was established in Palestinian lands for Jewish migrants in 1948. However this cruelty intensified ever since Hamas attacked Southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

Innocent Palestinians have been arbitrarily arrested, detained and subjected to savage forms of torture by Israel with the support of United States and Europe supplying latest destructive weapons and bombs to slaughter Palestinians .

Since the beginning of Israel’s air, land and sea military strikes in Gaza on 8 Oct. 2023 Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians, including women, children and members of health and civil defense teams. The fate of the majority remains unknown, with no official statistics available.

In an article titled “how an immoral global leadership allows Israel’s savage slaughter in Gaza to continue “columnist Ghada Agee said Palestinians who manage to survive Israeli military attacks risk being abducted from their homes and taken from the open-air prison of Gaza to Israeli detention and torture centers. If they do survive this collective punishment, Palestinians also risk being abducted and disappeared from their homes during the night?”.

A joint article by columnists Ahmed Aziz,Lubna Masarwa and Simon Hooper in the website Middle East Eye said “iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns: How Palestinians are tortured in Israeli detention “ . Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces told how they were physically tortured with dogs and electricity, subjected to mock executions, and held in humiliating and degrading conditions.

Ramy Abdu, the chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the testimonies of Palestinians released from Israeli detention reveal a systematic pattern of abuse, including forced strip searches, sexual harassment, threats of rape, severe beatings, dog attacks and denial of necessities such as food, water, and access to restroom facilities. “The use of such brutal tactics, particularly against vulnerable groups such as women, children and the elderly, is reprehensible and constitutes a gross violation of human dignity and international law.”

In testimonies one man, who was taken by Israeli forces from a school in Gaza where he had sought refuge with his family, described how he had been handcuffed, blindfolded and detained in a metal cage for 42 days. During interrogations he was given electric shocks, as well as scratched and bitten by army dogs. Other men also described being electrocuted, attacked by dogs, doused with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep and subjected to constant loud music.

“They did not spare anyone. There were 14-year-old boys and 80-year-old men,” said Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, who was taken prisoner in Gaza City and held for more than 30 days.

According to Geneva based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor “Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip are being subjected to premeditated murder and arbitrary execution outside the purview of the law and the judiciary”.

Euro-Med Monitor stated that Israeli prisons and detention centers have become more brutal replicas of Guantanamo. Ill treatment and degrading disregard of human dignity, deprivation of the most basic rights, and horrible forms of torture including those that result in murder have been documented despite numerous international condemnations and demands to ensure the rights and safety of prisoners and detainees.

Israeli forces physically assaulted and strangled a 14-year-old Palestinian boy Majid in the Palestinian village of Qalqilya in the West Bank in Israeli custody during detention and interrogation. Majd and his friends were walking in the western neighborhood of Azzoun when two Israeli military vehicles approached them.

“We felt very afraid and ran away, but the military vehicles chased us, and one of the military jeeps almost ran me over. I had to stop running, while my friends managed to escape and disappear,” Majd told . “Around 10 soldiers exited the two military vehicles, pointing their guns at me and started physically assaulting me for 30 minutes.”

“I was screaming and crying in fear and pain. They cuffed my hands behind my back with a single plastic tie, and I was blindfolded, thrown inside a military vehicle,” Majd said, and added that two soldiers assaulted him inside the vehicle for about 10 minutes.

“One of them put his boot on my mouth while stomping on my chest with his other boot,” Majd said. The military vehicle stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint located at the northern entrance to Azzoun. Majd was taken out of the vehicle, forced to stand still and a soldier repeatedly assaulted him with the stock of his rifle on the chest, head, and waist while directing insults at him.

“I was begging him to stop hitting me but to no avail. He then wrapped his hands around my neck, pressed with all his strength, and said in Arabic, ‘I’ll kill you by strangulation.’” Majd passed out and regained consciousness around 5 p.m. and found himself in a room, lying on the ground and surrounded by a soldier, a cat, and a military dog.

“I felt really scared, mostly because the sounds of the dog were terrifying. I started screaming out of fear because the cat scratched my face many times,” Majd told . “The soldier said in Arabic, ‘I will let the dog eat you.'”

Israeli forces continued torturing Majd until around 2 a.m, slamming his head against a wall several times, causing him to collapse and ask for water, but his request was rejected and they forced him to remain silent.

Majd was released around 12:30 p.m. on April 30 at the intersection of Haris village, near Ariel settlement. He couldn’t move or stand and remained lying on the ground until a Palestinian vehicle pulled over and drove him to his village, then transferred him to Azzoun Hospital.

Israeli forces unleashed an attack dog on a four-year-old Palestinian boy Ibrahim Hashash in the northern occupied West Bank this week.

A 17-year-old Palestinian boy Omar Ahmad Abdulghani Hamed, was shot in the head and killed. Israeli forces severely beat a 15-year-old Palestinian boy Amir in Hebron on his way to buy bread. Three Israeli soldiers approached 15-year-old Amir and began beating him near his home in Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank,

“Then, they dragged Amir about 10 meters (33 feet) along the street towards a nearby wall, pushing him against it. While facing the wall, he continued to slaps, punched his face and stomach. He has been suffering from breathing difficulties for a long time, and targeted painful and forceful slaps to face, causing him to lose vision in eyes due to the severity of the beating,” Amir told . 21 July 2024