'I wished for death': Report accuses Israel of 'systematic' torture of Palestinian prisoners

Israel is operating “an organised and systematic practice of sexual torture” against Palestinian prisoners from Gaza in its custody, according to a new report by a leading rights organisation.

Researchers and lawyers at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) interviewed men and women from the Gaza Strip who had been released from Israeli detention. The detainees gave accounts of rape, forced stripping, filming of abuse, sexual assault using objects and dogs and psychological humiliation.

“I wished for death every moment,” said a 42-year-old mother who was detained while crossing an Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza in November 2024.

She told the PCHR she endured repeated rapes and physical abuse that continued for days.

The former prisoner described being stripped, electrocuted, beaten and filmed while naked.

“They put me on a metal table, pressed my chest and head against it, cuffed my hands to the end of the bed, and pulled my legs apart forcefully,” she said.

“I felt a penis penetrating my anus and a man raping me. I started screaming, and they beat me on my back and head while I was blindfolded.”

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She added: “I could hear a camera so I believe they were filming me.”

Another man, a 35-year-old father arrested at Al Shifa Hospital in March 2024, told PCHR that he was raped by a dog inside Sde Teiman military camp after weeks of humiliation, stripping and threats.

He said soldiers brought detainees to an area away from cameras and set dogs on them.

“The dog did it deliberately, knowing exactly what it was doing, and inserted its penis into my anus, while the soldiers kept beating and torturing us and spraying pepper spray in our faces.”

The assault left him with a head wound requiring seven stitches, along with bruises, fractures to his limbs and a rib fracture.

“I suffered a severe psychological breakdown and deep humiliation. I lost control because I could never have imagined experiencing such a thing,” he said.

Sde Teiman military detention centre has become notorious for torture after a video leaked in August 2024 showing Israeli soldiers violently assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza, including anal rape.

According to the indictment, the man was taken to the hospital with broken ribs, a punctured lung and severe rectal injuries.

Five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm, yet none of them are being held in custody or placed under legal restrictions, Israeli media reported.

Meanwhile, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, the military advocate general who leaked the footage, has since been arrested on allegations that include fraud, breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and the unlawful disclosure of official information.

'Sheer anguish'

Another former detainee, a 41-year-old man held while displaced at Kamal Adwan Hospital in late 2023, recounted 22 months of sexual torture, including threats to assault his wife.

He told PCHR that a soldier raped him with a wooden stick while he was tied and blindfolded.

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The detainee said the pain and terror were so severe that “From sheer anguish I lost consciousness for minutes, until a female officer came and forced them to stop beating me.”

PCHR also interviewed an 18-year-old who had previously been detained and was arrested again near a humanitarian aid distribution site this year.

He described soldiers forcing him and others to kneel while assaulting them with a bottle.

The man added that this was done repeatedly, including in group assaults.

“They violated our dignity and destroyed our spirits and our hope for life. I had wanted to continue my education; now I am lost after what happened to me,” he said.

PCHR, whose investigators have documented extensive sexual violence against Palestinian women and men detained across Gaza over the past two years, said the accounts “do not reflect isolated incidents but constitute a systematic policy” carried out in Israel’s genocide.

Under the ceasefire agreed in October, Israel released 1,700 Palestinian detainees from Gaza who had been held indefinitely without charge or trial.

Yet the scale of Israel’s detentions remain enormous. Even after the mass release, at least 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza are still being held under the same conditions, with many more in prisons and military camps sealed off from international monitors, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

'They violated our dignity and destroyed our spirits and our hope for life'

- Palestinian prisoner 

A recent Guardian investigation found that Israel is keeping dozens of detainees from Gaza in total isolation inside an underground jail where they never see daylight, survive on inadequate food and are cut off entirely from news of their families.

Israeli leaders and far right figures have warned that reports of sexual torture in Israeli prisons have gravely damaged the country’s global image.

“The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the state of Israel and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in November.

“This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”