{"id":271210,"date":"2024-08-12T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=271210"},"modified":"2024-08-09T07:21:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T06:21:07","slug":"welcome-to-hell-u-s-silence-on-israels-network-of-torture-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/08\/welcome-to-hell-u-s-silence-on-israels-network-of-torture-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWelcome to Hell\u201d: U.S. Silence on Israel\u2019s Network of Torture Camps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

8 Aug 2024 <\/em>– \u201cWhen we got off the bus, a soldier said to us: \u2018Welcome to hell.\u2019\u201d Those are the words of 45 year-old Fouad Hassan, a father of five from Nablus in the occupied West Bank, who was recently held in Israel\u2019s Megiddo Prison. His words open a devastating report<\/a> from the Israeli human rights group B\u2019Tselem, exposing Israel\u2019s rapid conversion of Megiddo and eleven other prisons into a network of \u201ctorture camps\u201d following Hamas\u2019 October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.<\/p>\n

\n

Fouad is one of 55 Palestinians interviewed by B\u2019Tselem for the report, 30 from the West Bank, 21 from the Gaza Strip, and four who are Israeli citizens. Their searing testimonies are supplemented by news accounts and official reports, creating a shocking mosaic of systemic neglect, abuse, torture, and killings inside the Israeli prison system that have intensified since October 7th, all at the direction of Israel\u2019s far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.<\/p>\n

The accounts B\u2019Tselem has brought to light are shocking. Sari Huriyyah, a 53-year-old real estate lawyer and an Israeli citizen, was arrested over a Facebook post on November 4th. He described what happened to Abd a-Rahman Mar\u2019i, a 23-year-old man held in an isolation cell next to him:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe screamed in pain constantly, begging for a doctor. The guard would come now and then and swear: \u2018Eat Shit! Shut up!\u2019 In the morning, the guards came to count us. One said, \u2018Get up, you animal. Get up, you dog.\u2019 They checked him and the whole place went silent. Finally, the doctor said, \u2019There\u2019s nothing to be done.\u2019 One of the guards said to them, \u2018My condolences,\u2019 and they all started laughing. They put him in a black body bag, and carried him out like trash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firas Hassan, a 50-year-old Palestinian Authority official, described being beaten by prison guards and hearing that the attack was being live-streamed so Ben-Gvir could watch:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were ten Palestinians in the cell. The forces came in masked and beat us for 50 minutes. They laughed while they hit us, and livestreamed it all. I understand Hebrew and I heard one say, \u2018We\u2019re live streaming for Ben Gvir, directly to Ben Gvir.\u2019 Then brought in police dogs, after they tied our hands behind our backs, and blindfolded us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarit Michaeli is B\u2019Tselem\u2019s international advocacy lead. Speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour,<\/a> she said the blame for the torture and abuse goes beyond Ben-Gvir:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s certainly not the case that Minister Ben-Gvir is the only person responsible, absolutely Prime Minister Netanyahu, who gave him all of this authority, is absolutely responsible and culpable,\u201d Michaeli said, continuing, \u201cThese are policies. They\u2019re not the actions of rogue elements. They\u2019re not the actions of individuals who are going against the grain. They\u2019re dictated by the management of the Israeli prison system and by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s mainstream TV news outlet, Channel 12, aired a video showing a group of Israeli soldiers apparently gang raping a prisoner, leaving him with serious injuries to his rectum and with broken ribs.<\/p>\n

While the U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted seeing the video and acknowledged, \u201cthere ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period,\u201d there are no indications what the Biden administration conveyed to Israel.<\/p>\n

But without U.S. pressure, Michaeli explains, the abuses B\u2019Tselem highlights in its report won\u2019t change:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not expect any Israeli investigations to fundamentally alter the situation. We\u2019ve appealed to all nations and also to all relevant international institutions to look into the situation. Specifically, we\u2019ve also appealed to the International Criminal Court, because these offenses that we list in our reports are war crimes. They also reach the magnitude of crimes against humanity. This is the responsibility of the international community, including the United States government.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 5th, the United Nations issued a statement that began, \u201cReports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel\u2019s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey has asked to join South Africa\u2019s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, while the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is seeking indictments against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.<\/p>\n

Palestinian solidarity activists are focusing on presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, who opted not to preside over Netanyahu\u2019s recent address to a joint session of Congress. Activists disrupted her speech in Detroit on Wednesday, in the key swing state of Michigan, chanting, \u201cKamala, Kamala, you can\u2019t hide. We won\u2019t vote for genocide.\u201d Harris replied, \u201cYou know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that; otherwise, I\u2019m speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Palestinian solidarity actions planned both inside and outside the upcoming Democratic National Convention, all eyes are on Vice President Harris, as demands for a Gaza ceasefire continue.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a <\/em>Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Aug 2024 – Palestinian solidarity activists are focusing on presidential candidate VP Kamala Harris, who opted not to preside over Netanyahu\u2019s recent address to a joint session of Congress. Activists disrupted her speech in Detroit chanting, \u201cKamala, Kamala, you can\u2019t hide. We won\u2019t vote for genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":271212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[392,87,865,88,427,572,70],"class_list":["post-271210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-elections","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-torture","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271213,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271210\/revisions\/271213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}