Zionist Guantanamo in the Heart of the Negev Desert: Exposing Brutal Torture in Israeli Prisons

The Palestinians who were recently released from the Zionist regime's prisons are in such a state of mental disarray that serious questions have been raised about these prisons and the Zionists' treatment of Palestinian prisoners. The Euro-Mediterranean Bureau of Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement on the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist regime’s prisons, stating that the prisoners are subjected to brutal killings and torture.

According to Russia Today, the documents available show ongoing violations of humanitarian law in the Zionist regime’s prisons, including Sedi Timan, which is located in the military base of the occupation regime’s Southern Command, 5 km northwest of the city of Beersheba in the Negev Desert. The detention center, which today resembles the stories of the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Watch emphasized:

The prisons and detention centers of the Zionist regime have become bloodier centers than the American prison Guantanamo, and various forms of brutal torture, abuse, insults and humiliation of prisoners are carried out there.

Murders, brutal beatings, confinement in cages, tying the hands and feeding some prisoners with straw are only a part of what goes on behind the walls of this base and has leaked out, and what remains of this base is hidden, much more than has been revealed.

Recently, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper received evidence that among those detained at this base or in other prisons of the occupation regime, there are those who, after several weeks of release, are still undergoing treatment for the effects of torture, still suffering from some mental and physical problems. The findings complement the reports of Israeli sources, especially the testimonies that Haaretz newspaper cites about cases of deaths of prisoners, gradual and illegal killings, as well as all types of torture in this detention center, which were revealed by an Israeli doctor who works in the field hospital of the Sedi Timan base. The Israeli doctor sent a letter to Yoav Galant, the Zionist regime's Minister of Defense, and other relevant officials, warning against the continuation of illegal violations in the detention center.

Recently, Al Jazeera showed a video of Palestinian boxer Mazzem Abiat, in very poor physical condition and with a voice that radiates from physical weakness, saying: "Every day my brothers die in the Negev prison. We are three thousand prisoners who are beaten every night by Israeli prison guards. There is no food. There is no bathroom and things happen here that the mind cannot believe."

In response to the video, the Algerian newspaper Al-Khabar wrote: "The world hypocritically turned a blind eye to the acts of genocide and the violation of basic human rights in Gaza and against Palestinian prisoners. Every day, a new horror story is told in Israeli prisons about the crimes of the Israeli occupiers. In response to the news of this release, the Arabic site of the British BBC wrote that the photos of the respected Abayat on social networks raised questions about what is happening in Israeli prisons. Assadollah Haroun is one of the former prisoners of the American Guantanamo Bay prison, who vividly remembers the torture in American detention centers, looking at photos of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Haroun was arrested in 2007 and held in Guantanamo Bay without any charges for 16 years. He said Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails are subjected to the same treatment that happened to him. Al Jazeera quoted another former Guantanamo detainee as confirming the similarities between American and Israeli torture, adding: “Those who experienced similar detentions, torture and abuse by US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan agree with these accounts.”

Moazzam Beig is a human rights activist who was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay without charge for three years. He also points out the similarities between the behavior of the US military and Israeli soldiers. Beig said, “There is a clear, complete and undeniable similarity between Israeli prisons and the way Guantanamo prisoners are treated, where they are stripped naked and brutally abused.”

Louis al-Tawil, a Palestinian prisoner who spent many years in Israeli prisons and was recently released, speaking about the torture suffered by Palestinian prisoners, said, “Israeli prisons are like the infamous Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My transfer to the Negev shocked me. The prisoners who arrived here were stripped naked in a humiliating manner and brutally beaten and insulted.” Palestinian Aseel El-Tahiti called the prisons in Israel similar to Guantanamo. Al Arabi News Agency notes: “Our conditions were very bad and inhumane. The prisoners were beaten and subjected to various tortures.” The similarities between Guantanamo and Cedi Timan extend beyond the treatment of prisoners. The two centers justify their existence and provide legal cover for their excesses using similar arguments, and the Zionist regime also goes out of its way to shut down the media and keep lawyers and human rights defenders away from its prisons and detention centers like Cedi Timan.