JERUSALEM

An Israeli military doctor has provided a harrowing account of the inhumane conditions faced by Palestinian detainees at the notorious Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel. 

The doctor's testimony was published by the Israeli daily Haaretz on Friday, shedding light on the brutal treatment of detainees from Gaza.

The unnamed doctor, who served at the facility during the past winter, described appalling scenes inside the medical tents.

“In one hospitalization tent, there were no more than 20 patients. All had their four limbs shackled to old steel beds, like the ones used in our hospitals years ago. All were conscious and all were blindfolded all the time,” said the doctor.

The doctor recounted that many of the detainees had recently undergone major surgeries or had suffered gunshot wounds, some occurring just hours before their arrival at the facility.

"Every physician knows that what such a person needs is a day or two in intensive care and then to be moved to a ward. … But the person was sent to a pen in Sde Teiman two hours after surgery," the doctor said.

The doctor also reported the case of “another patient suffering from a systemic infection – sepsis.”

“He was in critical condition, and even according to the protocol, he should not have been there. Only patients who are completely stable are supposed to be hospitalized at Sde Teiman. But he was there and they said there was no alternative,” he added.

“To hold a person without letting them move any of their limbs, blindfolded, naked, under treatment, in the middle of the desert, … in the end, it's no less than torture,” he noted.

Reflecting on his time at Sde Teiman, the doctor said: “It all felt so surrealistic to me, just a quarter of an hour's drive from Be'er Sheva. Like, everything I'd been taught, all the years in university and in hospitals, how to treat people – all that exists, but in an environment in which 20 people are being held naked in a tent. It's something you can't imagine.”

The doctor's testimony is in line with previous reports of severe mistreatment, including torture, sexual assault, and other abuses at the Sde Teiman facility.

These reports have prompted five Israeli human rights organizations to petition the Israeli Supreme Court to demand the immediate closure of the detention center.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an attack last October by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Since then, an ongoing Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip has killed over 40,000 Palestinians.

Over 10 months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi.