We begin this week with stories about the Sde Teiman detention centre in the southern part of Israel. The stories, which began in May, document sexual abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners who have been held at the centre since the Oct. 7th attacks.
972 Magazine’s story about Sde Teiman is a very difficult read. Baker Zoubi interviewed, Khaled Mahajneh, a lawyer representing one of the detainees, Muhammad Arab of Al Araby TV. More than 4,000 Palestinians have been held at Sde Teiman.
All detainees, Mahajneh noted, face deteriorating health conditions due to the poor quality of the daily prison diet: a small amount of labaneh and a piece of cucumber or tomato. They also suffer from severe constipation, and for every 100 prisoners, only one roll of toilet paper is provided per day.
“The prisoners are prevented from talking to each other, even though more than 100 people are kept to a warehouse, some of them elderly and minors,” Mahajneh told +972. “They are not allowed to pray or even read the Qur’an.”
Arab also testified to his lawyer that Israeli guards sexually assaulted six prisoners with a stick in front of the other detainees after they had violated prison orders. “When he talked about rapes, I asked him, ‘Muhammad, you’re a journalist, are you sure about this?’” Mahajneh recounted. “But he said he saw it with his own eyes, and that what he was telling me was only a small part of what was happening there.”1
The Guardian’s story focused on the release of the head of al-Shifa hospital, the biggest one in Gaza. (Israel besieged and attacked the hospital last year for two weeks. It argued Hamas established a command centre inside the hospital.) Here’s a key part of the story.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, was among dozens of Palestinians freed and returned to Gaza on Monday, according to Israeli authorities.
The doctor, who had been held by Israel without charge since arrest at his workplace in November, said he and other prisoners were subjected to “almost daily torture” while in detention in Israel.
Mistreatment included assaults with batons and dogs, deprivation of food and medicine, as well as physical and psychological humiliation, Abu Salmiya said.2
What happens in Gaza after Israel’s war remains a mystery. The Times of Israel reviewed the multiple post-war plans. One features “the creation of ‘bubbles’ or ‘islands’ inside the enclave, which would serve as temporary shelters for Palestinians unaffiliated with the terror group Hamas.”3 Another is no less optimistic.
A separate plan, envisioned by the right-wing Misgav think tank, calls for a long-term Israeli military occupation of Gaza, at least until three-quarters of the military wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been eliminated. According to the report, the IDF estimates it has killed or captured about half of Hamas’s fighting force. Only once that objective is accomplished would the administration of the enclave by a separate force be feasible, the think tank said.4
Reuters has a sharper story on who might run in Gaza after the war. Israel’s plan “was to shape an alternative civil administration involving local Palestinian actors not part of the existing structures of power and willing to work alongside Israel.”5 Here’s a key passage:
Israel has been "actively looking for local tribes and families on the ground to work with them," said Tahani Mustafa, Senior Palestine Analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. "They refused."
They don’t want to get involved, in part because they fear retribution from Hamas, said Mustafa, who is in touch with some of the families and other local stakeholders in Gaza.
That threat is real because—despite Israel's explicit war objective of destroying Hamas—the Palestinian group still has operatives enforcing its will on the streets of Gaza, according to six residents who spoke to Reuters.6
Nahal Toosi in Politico critiques even more day-after plans for Gaza. Her prediction about all of the efforts to rethink Gaza after Israel’s war is bleak.
In two years, Gaza will be a rubble-ridden set of tent camps policed by the Israeli military. In other words, Israel will occupy the Gaza Strip, even if it refuses to admit it. Israel also will still be battling militants, be they from Hamas or some other group, because its approach to the war has enraged so many Palestinians that the odds of them radicalizing are higher than the odds of any “de-radicalization” effort.
That doesn’t mean day-after planning now isn’t worth it, but leadership matters as does speed. With no hope to offer the people shattered by the war, a peaceful “day after” may never arrive.7
The day after has arrived for the pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Toronto, which I wrote about in May. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted an injunction to U of T to clear the encampment by 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3rd, and the campers said they’re leaving. CBC News has the story.
[Erin] Mackey says university president Meric Gertler should have met with demonstrators before seeking an injunction.
"The least they could do is, you know, meet with their students and listen to our demands," she said. "Unfortunately U of T, instead of divesting, has called the police on their own students. That's appalling."
Mackey said even if camp is dispersed, students, faculty and staff will continue to demonstrate until their demands are met.
"I do absolutely believe that U of T will divest," she said. "And it is not a question of if, it is a question of when."8
If you have any stories or thoughts, please make it a matter of when, not if, at blakejlambert@gmail.com.
Here’s 972 Magazine story: https://www.972mag.com/sde-teiman-prisoners-lawyer-mahajneh/
Here’s The Guardian’s story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/01/freed-gaza-hospital-head-accuses-israel-of-repeated-torture?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1
Times of Israel story is here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/from-civilian-bubbles-to-arab-coalitions-israel-said-weighing-gaza-post-war-schemes/
Ibid.
Reuters is here: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-next-headache-who-will-run-post-war-gaza-2024-07-02/
Ibid.
Nahal Toosi’s story in Politico is here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/12/post-war-gaza-plans-column-00162811
CBC News is here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/u-of-t-injunction-encampment-deadline-1.7252944