Israeli-run hospital accused of abusing Gaza Palestinians

Palestinian patients in handcuffs and diapers. Surgeries without adequate anesthesia. These are the charges levelled at an Israeli-run military hospital.

According to the news agency, Associated Press The Israeli-run hospital, located at the Israeli military base Stetman in the Negev Desert, has come under intense criticism.

These accusations come from Israeli human rights organizations, Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHR-I). They said the field hospital was not subject to Israel’s patient rights laws and wrote on their website on April 18 that they were calling for its closure.

– Based on numerous testimonies from detainees and medical staff regarding conditions at the facility, we conclude that the Stetman facility must be closed immediately. Palestinian detainees in Gaza who require medical treatment should be transferred to civilian hospitals that maintain ethical and professional medical standards, PHRI wrote.

Denial

The Israeli military has denied accusations of inhumane treatment of Palestinians and said all detainees who needed medical treatment were receiving it.

On the other hand, human rights groups and other critics argue that what was initially a temporary place to hold and treat radical Palestinians after October 7 has become a shabby detention center with little accountability for detainees.

The Israeli government is facing increasing pressure to close the refugee camps and hospitals.

Israel’s Supreme Court is currently considering arguments by human rights groups calling for the camp and hospital to be closed.

The petition was submitted by PHR-I, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Israeli human rights organization HaMoked and the Public Committee Against Torture (PCATI), among others, the newspaper wrote. The Times of Israel.

The detention camps will be cleared

Israel is currently dismantling detention camps for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war, Reuters reported.

Israeli prosecutors told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that prisoners held in the Stetman prison, which was opened after Hamas launched an Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, will be gradually transferred to permanent prison facilities.

State prosecutor Aner Helman told the court in response to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and others that 700 prisoners had been transferred to Ofer, a military prison in the West Bank.

Another 500 will be transferred in the coming weeks. The fate of the remaining 200 Palestinian prisoners has not yet been determined.

– The transfer has already begun and most prisoners will be transferred within a few weeks. It is said that this will improve conditions for the remaining prisoners.

Uncertainty at the hospital

There was no mention of what happened at the hospital, which has been a problem as civilian hospitals refuse to admit Palestinian militants for security reasons.

Days after the October 7 Hamas terror attack, about 100 Israelis clashed with police outside one of Israel’s largest hospitals over a false rumor that the hospital was treating a Palestinian militant.

As a result of the incident, some Israeli hospitals refused to treat Palestinian detainees for fear of endangering staff and disrupting hospital operations.

Torture-like treatment

The allegations against the Stetmann hospital are that patients are subjected to degrading and torture-like treatment. Many prisoners have to be handcuffed, naked and in diapers. Many also have to wear blindfolds all day.

They must also be prohibited from moving around and talking to each other. Testimonies from more than 100 released prisoners say they risk severe punishment if they violate the ban. CNN.

Among other things, released prisoners testified to UNRWA that they were often subjected to severe violence, in some cases resulting in broken bones, internal bleeding and even death.

The Associated Press has received confirmation from three people who have worked at the hospital.

return BBC Talked to healthcare professionals and they told many of the same stories.

Unacceptable pain level

One whistleblower described how surgical procedures in military hospitals were “routinely” carried out without painkillers, causing “unacceptable pain” to detainees.

Another whistleblower said painkillers were used “selectively” and “in a very limited way.”

The military disputed witness testimony obtained by the AP and claimed that patients were handcuffed only when the security situation required it and were removed if they were causing harm, further noting that patients were only put in diapers in rare circumstances.

Fear of strong reaction

Of the three health workers interviewed by The Associated Press, two spoke only on the condition of complete anonymity because they feared government retaliation and public condemnation.

– We are condemned by the left because we are not ethical, said Amnesty doctor Yoel Donchin, who has worked at Sde Teiman Hospital since its inception and still works there.

– But at the same time we are condemned by the right wing. They consider us criminals because of how we treat alleged terrorists, he added.

Non-combatants

Doctors there say they have treated many people who appeared to be noncombatants. Donchin said that includes the elderly and people with diabetes and high blood pressure.

Donchin has largely defended the facility against allegations of abuse but has been critical of some of the treatment. He said most patients were in diapers and were not allowed to use the bathroom. Their arms and legs were chained and their eyes were blindfolded.

– their eyes were covered at all times. “I don’t know what the security reason for this is,” he said.

Donchin also said there was no individual assessment of the need for restraints, and even patients who were unable to walk, such as those with leg amputations, were shackled to their beds.

– Working under difficult conditions

Dr. Michael Barilan, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s medical school, has spoken to 15 hospital staff members and disputes the story of medical negligence.

He believes that doctors are doing their best under difficult circumstances and that the blindfolding is only to prevent patients from later retaliating against those who take care of them. The military told the Associated Press that 36 Gazans have died in Israeli detention centers since October 7, some of them from illness or injuries sustained in the war.

Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights has argued that some of the deaths were caused by medical negligence.

The military said it was investigating the death.