A few weeks into the war, reports and rumors began coming in about what was happening at Sde Teiman, where thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip were being brought after mass arrests by soldiers. The reports were vague and we struggled to verify them, but still it was clear that something very bad was happening at the facility in the south.
Sde Teiman was a place where the most horrible torture we had ever seen was occurring.
It was particularly hard to get the public interested, especially for a worldview stating that even when your blood is boiling and the reality is unbearable, you must maintain your humanity – and Israel must not descend to the moral level of Hamas in its relationship with the people under its absolute control.
Very slowly, the full dimensions of the horror emerged: Sde Teiman was a place where the most horrible torture we had ever seen was occurring.
Clashes between protesters and soldiers in Beit Lid army base, on Monday evening.
The testimonies from people serving at the facility, or from inmates who had been released, were frightening. This included inhumane conditions and abuse including sexual abuse, sleep deprivation, the playing of extremely loud music for long stretches, and severe physical violence. It's not for nothing that Sde Teiman has been called "the Israeli Guantanamo."
Around 4,000 prisoners have been brought to Israel since the ground offensive into Gaza began in October. More than 40 percent of them were eventually released and returned to Gaza. That means that many were not Hamas fighters and thus were confined and tortured at Sde Teiman without any "security" justification.
Either way, there is no security justification for sadistic abuse like the kind the soldiers who were detained for questioning Monday are suspected. Working with other organizations, we called attention to what was happening at Sde Teiman and other detention facilities. We managed to gain access to detainees, established their legal status and improved their living conditions.
A mob of Israelis at the Sde Teiman base, yesterday.Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
An Israeli truck with Gazan detainees, in December.Credit: Moti Milrod
But despite the promises we received, Sde Teiman has not been closed, though its operations have been downsized and some of its inmates have been released or moved to other detention facilities where reports have also surfaced of brutal, inhuman and humiliating treatment.
In Monday's unprecedented incident, the military police arrived at the facility to arrest soldiers suspected of involvement in the serious sexual abuse of one prisoner and were violently resisted by the soldiers being arrested. This proves what we have been saying since the start of the war: Sde Teiman has been managed as an extraterritorial site, and the soldiers there are a law unto themselves – first in their actions and attitude toward the detainees, and now toward the military police and the justice system.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party mobilized in defense of the suspects. And Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, declared that he will convene an urgent hearing to look into the actions of the law enforcement authorities – not of the rioting soldiers. All this underscores how we have reached the shameful situation in which Israeli soldiers are suspected of torture. They receive backing and support instead of total condemnation.
The Sde Teiman air base.Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
Israel is at a crossroads. It must decide whether it's a country where the rule of law remains, or a country controlled by armed gangs of right-wing settlers who come to the defense of soldiers even when they're suspected of shocking crimes with no justification for the country's security. If we make the wrong decision, we will send a clear message to the whole world: Israel doesn't want to and cannot investigate itself.
From here, the road to international arrest warrants, sanctions and isolation will be shorter than ever. Against the government's unprecedented political pressure on the law enforcement authorities, the gatekeepers will have to show greater courage than ever to continue to perform their duties. So that all of us as Israelis can retain a shadow of our humanity, and so that Israel can have a future as a country of democratic law, I hope with all my heart that the gatekeepers succeed.
Tal Steiner is the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.