Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses,
detainees say
[March 26, 2025]
By JULIA FRANKEL and SAM MEDNICK
JERUSALEM (AP) — Under pressure from Israel’s top court to improve
conditions at a facility notorious for mistreating Palestinians seized
in Gaza, the military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened
camps.
But abuses at these camps were just as bad, according to Israeli human
rights organizations that interviewed dozens of current and former
detainees and are now asking the same court to force the military to fix
the problem once and for all.
What the detainees’ testimonies show, rights groups say, is that instead
of correcting alleged abuses against Palestinians held without charge or
trial — including beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and
health care -- Israel’s military just shifted where they take place.
“What we’ve seen is the erosion of the basic standards for humane
detention,” said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked, one of the
rights groups petitioning the Israeli government.
Asked for a response, the military said it complies with international
law and “completely rejects allegations regarding the systematic abuse
of detainees.”
The sprawling Ofer Camp and the smaller Anatot Camp, both built in the
West Bank, were supposed to resolve problems rights groups documented at
a detention center in the Negev desert called Sde Teiman. That site was
intended to temporarily hold and treat militants captured during Hamas’
Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But it morphed into a long-term
detention center infamous for brutalizing Palestinians rounded up in
Gaza, often without being charged.
Detainees transferred to Ofer and Anatot say conditions there were no
better, according to more than 30 who were interviewed by lawyers for
Hamoked and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. AP is the first
international news organization to report on the affidavits from PHRI.
“They would punish you for anything” said Khaled Alserr, 32, a surgeon
from Gaza who spent months at Ofer Camp and agreed to speak about his
experiences. He was released after six months without charge.
Alserr said he lost count of the beatings he endured from soldiers after
being rounded up in March of last year during a raid at Nasser Hospital
in Khan Younis. “You’d be punished for making eye contact, for asking
for medicine, for looking up towards the sky,” said Alserr.
Other detainees’ accounts to the rights groups remain anonymous. Their
accounts could not be independently confirmed, but their testimonies –
given separately – were similar.
The Supreme Court has given the military until the end of March to
respond to the alleged abuses at Ofer.
Leaving Sde Teiman
Since the war began, Israel has seized thousands in Gaza that it
suspects of links to Hamas. Thousands have also been released, often
after months of detention.
Hundreds of detainees were freed during the ceasefire that began in
January. But with ground operations recently restarted in Gaza, arrests
continue. The military won’t say how many detainees it holds.
After Israel's Supreme Court ordered better treatment at Sde Teiman, the
military said in June it was transferring hundreds of detainees,
including 500 sent to Ofer.
Ofer was built on an empty lot next to a civilian prison of the same
name. Satellite photos from January show a paved, walled compound, with
24 mobile homes that serve as cells.
Anatot, built on a military base in a Jewish settlement, has two
barracks, each with room for about 50 people, according to Hamoked.
Under wartime Israeli law, the military can hold Palestinians from Gaza
for 45 days without access to the outside world. In practice, many go
far longer.
Whenever detainees met with Hamoked lawyers, they were “dragged
violently” into a cell — sometimes barefoot and often blindfolded, and
their hands and feet remained shackled throughout the meetings, the
rights group said in a letter to the military’s advocate general.
“I don’t know where I am,” one detainee told a lawyer.
Newly freed Israeli hostages have spoken out about their own harsh
conditions in Gaza. Eli Sharabi, who emerged gaunt after 15 months of
captivity, told Israel’s Channel 12 news that his captors said hostages’
conditions were influenced by Israel’s treatment of Palestinian
prisoners.
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Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with bound and blindfolded
Palestinian detainees, in Gaza, Dec. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Moti Milrod,
Haaretz, File)
Detainees allege regular beatings
Alserr said he was kept with 21 others from Gaza in a
40-square-meter cell with eight bunk beds. Some slept on the floor
on camping mattresses soldiers had punctured so they couldn't
inflate, he said. Scabies and lice were rampant. He said he was only
allowed outside his cell once a week.
Detainees from Ofer and Anatot said they were regularly beaten with
fists and batons. Some said they were kept in handcuffs for months,
including while they slept and ate — and unshackled only when
allowed to shower once a week.
Three prisoners held in Anatot told the lawyers that they were
blindfolded constantly. One Anatot detainee said that soldiers woke
them every hour during the night and made them stand for a
half-hour.
In response to questions from AP, the military said it was unaware
of claims that soldiers woke detainees up. It said detainees have
regular shower access and are allowed daily yard time. It said
occasional overcrowding meant some detainees were forced to sleep on
"mattresses on the floor.”
The military said it closed Anatot in early February because it was
no longer needed for “short-term incarceration” when other
facilities were full. Sde Teiman, which has been upgraded, is still
in use.
Nutrition and health care
Alserr said the worst thing about Ofer was medical care. He said
guards refused to give him antacids for a chronic ulcer. After 40
days, he felt a rupture. In the truck heading to the hospital,
soldiers tied a bag around his head.
“They beat me all the way to the hospital," he said. "At the
hospital they refused to remove the bag, even when they were
treating me.”
The military said all detainees receive checkups and proper medical
care. It said “prolonged restraint during detention” was only used
in exceptional cases and taking into account the condition of each
detainee.
Many detainees complained of hunger. They said they received three
meals a day of a few slices of white bread with a cucumber or
tomato, and sometimes some chocolate or custard.
That amounts to about 1,000 calories a day, or half what is
necessary, said Lihi Joffe, an Israeli pediatric dietician who read
some of the Ofer testimonies and called the diet “not humane.”
After rights groups complained in November, Joffe said she saw new
menus at Ofer with greater variety, including potatoes and falafel —
an improvement, she said, but still not enough.
The military said a nutritionist approves detainees' meals, and that
they always have access to water.
Punished for seeing a lawyer
Two months into his detention, Alserr had a 5-minute videoconference
with a judge, who said he would stay in prison for the foreseeable
future.
Such hearings are “systematically” brief, according to Nadia Daqqa,
a Hamoked attorney. No lawyers are present and detainees are not
allowed to talk, she said.
Several months later, Alserr was allowed to meet with a lawyer. But
he said he was forced to kneel in the sun for hours beforehand.
Another detainee told the lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights
that he underwent the same punishment. ”All the time, he has been
threatening to take his own life," the lawyer wrote in notes affixed
to the affidavit.
Since his release in September, Alserr has returned to work at the
hospital in Gaza.
The memories are still painful, but caring for patients again helps,
he said. "I’m starting to forget ... to feel myself again as a human
being.”
—
AP correspondents Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Fatma
Khaled in Cairo contributed reporting.
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