Whistleblowers Decry Maltreatment of Palestinian Detainees At Israel Hospital

Some Whistlebowers in Israel have opened up on the routine mistreatment of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, including being restrained to hospital beds, blindfolded, sometimes stripped, and made to wear nappies, which one medic labelled as “torture.”

One of the whistle-blowers detailed how procedures at one military hospital were often carried out without providing any pain relief, causing “an unacceptable amount of pain” to detainees.

Another whistle-blower revealed the selective and limited use of pain relief during medical procedures on Gazan detainees in a public hospital.

He also highlighted the denial of proper treatment to seriously ill patients held in makeshift military facilities, due to public hospitals  reluctance to transfer and treat them.

One detainee, taken from Gaza for questioning by the Israeli army and later released, shared with the BBC that his leg had to be amputated because he was denied treatment for an infected wound.

A senior doctor, working inside the military hospital at the center of the allegations, denied that any amputations were directly caused by conditions there, but described the restraints used by guards as “dehumanising.”

The Israeli army maintained that detainees at the facility received appropriate and careful treatment.

Both whistle-blowers, who spoke to the BBC, held positions enabling them to assess the medical treatment of detainees. They requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue among their colleagues.

Their accounts found support in a report published in February by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, which described Israel’s civilian and military prisons as “an apparatus of retribution and revenge,” where detainees’ human rights, particularly their right to health, were being violated.

Concerns over the treatment of sick and injured detainees were focused on a military field hospital at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel.

The field hospital was established by Israel’s Health Ministry after the Hamas attacks specifically to treat Gazan detainees, as some public hospitals and staff were hesitant to treat fighters captured on the day of the Hamas attacks.

Since then, Israeli forces had detained large numbers of people from Gaza and transported them to bases like Sde Teiman for interrogation. Those suspected of fighting for Hamas were sent to Israeli detention centers, while many others were released back to Gaza without charge.

The army did not disclose details of the detainees it held.

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