Since Israel invaded Gaza, the Sde Teiman military base has filled with blindfolded, handcuffed detainees, held without charge or legal representation.
NEW YORK TIMES
The men sat in rows, handcuffed and blindfolded, unable to see the Israeli soldiers who stood watch over them from the other side of a mesh fence.
They were barred from talking more loudly than a murmur, and forbidden to stand or sleep except when authorized.
A few knelt in prayer. One was being inspected by a paramedic. Another was briefly allowed to remove his handcuffs to wash himself. The hundreds of other Gazan detainees sat in silence. They were all cut off from the outside world, prevented for weeks from contacting lawyers or relatives.
This was the scene one afternoon in late May at a military hangar inside Sde Teiman, an army base in southern Israel that has become synonymous with the detention of Gazan Palestinians. Most Gazans captured since the start of the war on Oct. 7 have been brought to the site for initial interrogation, according to the Israeli military.
The military, which has not previously granted access to the media, allowed The New York Times to briefly see part of the detention facility as well as to interview its commanders and other officials, on condition of preserving their anonymity.
Once an obscure barracks, Sde Teiman is now a makeshift interrogation site and a major focus of accusations that the Israeli military has mistreated detainees, including people later determined to have no ties to Hamas or other armed groups. In interviews, former detainees described beatings and other abuse in the facility.
By late May, roughly 4,000 Gazan detainees had spent up to three months in limbo at Sde Teiman, including several dozen people captured during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel in October, according to the site commanders who spoke to The Times.
After interrogation, around 70 percent of detainees had been sent to purpose-built prisons for further investigation and prosecution, the commanders said. The rest, at least 1,200 people, had been found to be civilians and returned to Gaza, without charge, apology or compensation.
“My colleagues didn’t know whether I was dead or alive,” said Muhammad al-Kurdi, 38, an ambulance driver whom the military has confirmed was held at Sde Teiman late last year.
“I was imprisoned for 32 days,” said Mr. al-Kurdi. He said he had been captured in November after his convoy of ambulances attempted to pass through an Israeli military checkpoint south of Gaza City.
“It felt like 32 years,” he added.
A three-month investigation by The New York Times — based on interviews with former detainees and with Israeli military officers, doctors and soldiers who served at the site; the visit to the base; and data about released detainees provided by the military — found those 1,200 Palestinian civilians have been held at Sde Teiman in demeaning conditions without the ability to plead their cases to a judge for up to 75 days. Detainees are also denied access to lawyers for up to 90 days and their location is withheld from rights groups as well as from the International Committee of the Red Cross, in what some legal experts say is a contravention of international law.
