Since the establishment of “Israel’s” notorious Sde Teiman concentration camp, filled with thousands of Palestinian civilians from Gaza, rounded up and abducted from cities, refugee camps, schools and hospitals by the invading Zionist army as part and parcel of their genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, those who are released have spoken about the horror of their experiences at the hands of the occupation soldiers. Palestinian survivors have testified about rape and sexual assault, starvation and denial of food, people being handcuffed 24/7, forced amputations of limbs due to torture, denial of medical care, beatings, noise and sound torture, “hooding” and binding of detainees, attacks by trained dogs, and all other forms of abuse and torture.
Palestinian survivor after survivor have spoken on the record about their experiences. At least 38 Palestinian detainees from Gaza held at Sde Teiman have been martyred under torture and denied medical treatment, even though the full scope of the crimes are not yet visible due to the secrecy surrounding the torture camp. Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh, the first lawyer to speak to detainees held at Sde Teiman recounted multiple instances of rape and sexual assault, electric shock torture, dangerous hygiene conditions (the journalist he visited was “covered in dirt and bird droppings”) and brutal beatings. Even CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, imperialist outlets that have eagerly promoted Zionist propaganda about its genocide in Gaza, have covered the horror that is Sde Teiman — and, indeed, the entire Zionist prison system.
Sde Teiman is a systemic crime
Sde Teiman is not an aberration or an unusual case. It is part and parcel of the military system and the use of imprisonment to target Palestinians en masse. It is the labour camps of the 1947-1948 Nakba, the interrogation centres throughout occupied Palestine. Sde Teiman is, of course, also Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib, as the US and the Zionist regime share strategies of torture, interrogation and abuse directed, largely, at Palestinian and Arab men. In short: Sde Teiman is Zionism and imperialism; it is the fruit of the perpetrators of the genocide; it is the experience of Palestinian prisoners and the entire Palestinian people, for over 76 years, distilled and condensed into a concentration camp to torture the victims of genocide.
Sde Teiman burst once more into global visibility on July 29, after nine Zionist soldiers were arrested by military police for their role in the mass rape and sexual assault of at least one Palestinian detainee, who was injured so badly that he was hospitalized due to the damage to his rectum and anus. The arrest is itself extremely uncommon, given that Zionist soldiers have been essentially given free rein to engage in a widespread, systemic campaign of torture, rape and abuse against the Palestinian people, part of the same genocidal campaign that has taken over 40,000 Palestinian lives in Gaza, from the bombing of water wells and treatment plants to the systematic destruction of hospitals and the health care system to the bombing of refugees in tents and children at play to the numerous TikTok videos made by Zionist soldiers boasting of their war crimes and displaying them to the world.
From the daily settler violence in the West Bank of occupied Palestine to the leading politicians of the regime ordering more genocide on a daily basis, complete impunity is built into the system. However, the growing international pressure, including the legal pressure at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice — as well as, reportedly, new forthcoming restrictions on British arms trade with the Zionist regime, has mandated that the Zionist regime make at least the appearance of some form of discipline for the most extreme examples of abuse. The crimes at Sde Teiman were not perpetrated by nine occupation soldiers, but by the entire occupation regime.
Zionists demand the right to rape
However, the arrest of the nine soldiers did not stop there. Military police entered the compound and seized the soldiers, taking them away. It must be noted that this “raid” was conducted with far greater care and non-violence than the daily dozens of raids throughout occupied Palestine, where occupation soldiers blow the doors off Palestinian homes, steal children from their beds and terrorize families on a nightly basis. However, it is the response to the arrests that truly has put the reality of Zionism on display, if the past ten months of videos and photos of livestreamed genocide did not consolidate that reality: throngs of paramilitary settlers and fascist politicians rioting to demand the right to rape Palestinian detainees. These fascist mobs were allowed to engage in violent riots and invade military bases, in sharp contrast to the occupation opening fire with live bullets on Palestinian demonstrators.
This is the reality of Zionism: Masses of fascists screaming for their unlimited right to rape and abuse Palestinians, with Members of the Knesset affirming it openly, with Likud MK Hanoch Milvetsky declaring that “everything is legitimate” in response to a direct question about rape with foreign objects and politician after politician declaring it unacceptable that Zionist soldiers could be tried or arrested for their crimes. And, as expected, occupation authorities have reportedly “acknowledged mistakes” — not for allowing the rapes to continue, but for arresting the rapists too visibly! This is the point that the internal crisis and decay of the Zionist regime has reached, in full view of the world.
The rape-supporting riots and the exposure of the crimes at Sde Teiman have also thrown a sharp light on the campaign of lies and misinformation directed against the Palestinian resistance. Released “Israeli” detainees held by the Palestinian resistance and released in prisoner exchanges have, despite massive incentives to do otherwise, largely spoken of their well-treatment by the Resistance. The photos of released Zionist detainees, compared to those of released Palestinian detainees, speak for themselves. Despite conditions of genocide and starvation throughout Gaza, the captives of the resistance received all the food available, while the Zionist forces deliberately starve Palestinian detainees despite an abundance of resources supported and funded by the world’s imperialist powers, including the US, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy.
The smear campaign against the Palestinian resistance
Further, the drumbeat of misinformation and misrepresentation about Al-Aqsa Flood and the 7 October military operation of the Palestinian Resistance is perhaps more exposed than ever. Despite the loud claims and propaganda campaigns of Zionist officials, U.S. officials, and even complicit international institutions, not a shred of evidence for rape and sexual assault as part of the Al-Aqsa Flood has been produced. Indeed, the unproven and fantastical allegations have largely been sourced from right-wing Zionist men, the same ones responsible for false allegations of “beheaded and burned babies.” Now, right-wing Zionist men are rioting against their own state for the right to rape, burn and kill Palestinians. Sde Teiman is not “revenge” for October 7 — the institutional crimes that are crystallized in Sde Teiman are part of the reason why the Palestinian resistance has been willing to undertake such tremendous sacrifices, before, during and after October 7 in order to liberate the Palestinian prisoners — and of course, to liberate Palestine, from the river to the sea.
It cannot be any clearer that the defamation of the Palestinian resistance is perhaps the clearest exmple of “every accusation is a confession” on the part of the Zionist regime. The Palestinian resistance forces have consistently and firmly conducted themselves with honour, faith and commitment to the liberation of their land and people, while the Zionist occupation forces have engaged in a genocidal orgy of destruction. After Sde Teiman, the reality must be clear to all.
Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the NYPD and Sde Teiman
Of course, the crimes of Sde Teiman are part and parcel of the Zionist alliance with imperialism as well. They are sharply reminiscent of the reliance on sexualized torture and abuse of Arab men at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, just as the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib recalled decades of torture of Palestinian prisoners, so much that one chair used for torture was referred to as the “Palestinian chair” by U.S. interrogators. This practice is not confined to U.S. imperialism in the Arab nation, of course; NYPD cops’ rape of Haitian American Abner Louima with an object in 1997, so severe as to require three surgeries, once again highlighted the systematic violence against Black people carried out by US cops, including sexual violence directed at Black men and women.
Sexualized torture has not been confined to Palestinian and Arab men, of course; Palestinian women have been subjected to extreme sexual assault, torture and abuse. Rasmea Odeh exposed these crimes to the world at the United Nations and the Sunday Times in 1979; of course, she was later deported from the United States for her bravery. Algerian women were subjected to mass rape by French colonizers, including political prisoners jailed for their resistance to colonialism. Palestinians — and Zionists — documented the rape of Palestinian women and girls in the Nakba of 1947-48. The allegorical references to the rape of the land of Palestine by the occupation forces, their settlements and their land confiscation, are built on a material foundation of the physical rape of Palestinian women and men.
The Zionist regime is not only subjecting Palestinian prisoners — in Sde Teiman and in the “regular” Israel Prison Service prisons, directed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the “right to rape” leaders — to severe torture and abuse, it is imprisoning the bodies of the martyrs after they are killed. Approximately 38 Palestinians have been confirmed to have been martyred at Sde Teiman, including famed surgeon Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, and approximately 21 in the Zionist prisons. Several of the martyrs’ and survivors’ stories are told in a new article in the Washington Post.
Organize, resist and act!
Despite all of these crimes, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement continues to play a leadership role in the liberation struggle, to develop the movement and to organize together, confronting the Zionists with their bodies and lives on the line on a daily basis. The Resistance, led in Gaza, in the West Bank, throughout occupied Palestine, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Iraq and throughout the region, is fighting to defend humanity and to bring these crimes to an end, once and for all. There can be no accomodation with the Zionist regime, a criminal regime built upon genocide, dispossession and destruction, but only its defeat and dismantlement.
As we join in the global outrage at the crimes of Sde Teiman, we must redouble our efforts to organize to end the genocide, to stand with the resistance, to liberate the prisoners and for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. We urge all appalled by the “right to rape riots” to join in the global actions on August 3 for Gaza and the prisoners: take direct action, organize mass rallies, educate your communities, and shut down Zionism and imperialism.
