Israel soldier jailed for abusing Palestinian detainees from Gaza

The Sde Teiman detention facility was set up after the start of the Gaza war 15 months ago. Since then, it has been at the centre of reports of serious abuses.

In July, far-right protesters broke into Sde Teiman after Israeli military police went there to question nine reservists suspected of raping a detainee and causing a life-threatening injury to him. Several of the reservists were subsequently arrested.

In October, a report by a UN commission of inquiry alleged that thousands of child and adult detainees from Gaza had been “subjected to widespread and systematic abuse, physical and psychological violence, and sexual and gender-based violence amounting to the war crime and crime against humanity of torture and the war crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence”.

Israel’s government said it rejected the accusations of widespread ill-treatment and torture of detainees, and insisted that it was “fully committed to international legal standards”. It also said it had carried out thorough investigations into every complaint.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 47,550 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

According to the Israeli rights group HaMoked, 1,802 Palestinians from Gaza are currently being held as “unlawful combatants” in Israeli prisons. The figure does not include detainees being held by the military.