Freed Gazan woman reveals sexual torture in Israeli prisons

ISTANBUL 

A recently freed Palestinian woman has reported being subjected to sexual violence four times and being filmed naked during her detention in Israeli prisons, according to a statement issued by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

The statement documented the testimony of the former detainee, identified as N.A., and revealed an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture including rape, forced stripping, forced filming, (and) sexual assault using objects and dogs” perpetrated by Israeli soldiers.

The center said the testimonies it collected show that Palestinian detainees are subjected to “deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely.”

It stressed that “the testimonies do not reflect isolated incidents but constitute a systematic policy practiced in the context of the ongoing crime of genocide against more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

According to the center, the woman, aged 42, was arrested in November 2024 while crossing an Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza.

She recounted being subjected to “multiple forms of torture and sexual violence, including being raped four times by Israeli soldiers, repeatedly subjected to obscene insults, stripped and filmed naked, electrocuted, and beaten across her body.”

In one instance, she said: “At dawn, I heard the soldiers shouting, saying that morning prayers were forbidden, and I think it was the fourth day after my arrest from Gaza.”

“They ordered me to take off my clothes. I did so. 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…a man raping me. I started screaming, and they beat me on my back and head while I was blindfolded,” she added.

“I cannot describe what I felt; I wished for death every moment. After they raped me, I was left alone in the same room, hands still cuffed to the bed and without clothes for many hours.”

-Stripped for a full day

Speaking of the most degrading abuse, she said: “I was left naked the whole day in the room, where I spent three days.”

“On the third day, I remained without clothes while they looked at me through the door slit and filmed me. One soldier said they would post my photos on social media. While I was in the room, my period started; then they told me to put on clothes and transferred me to another room.”

The sexual violence was not limited to female prisoners, as male detainees were also targeted.

The center documented the testimony of another detainee, M.A., aged 18, who was arrested by Israeli forces near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution center in the Gaza Strip.

He said he was sexually assaulted, explaining that soldiers “ordered me and six other detainees to kneel, and they raped us by inserting a bottle into the anus.”

In light of these Israeli violations, the PCHR called on the international community “to take immediate action to end the systematic policy of torture and enforced disappearance against Palestinian detainees.”

It called for “concrete measures to pressure Israel to release all Palestinians arbitrarily detained, to disclose the fate and whereabouts of all forcibly disappeared persons, and to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross immediate and unrestricted access to all detention facilities.”

The center also warned that “thousands of Palestinian detainees face the risk of certain death” under a proposed Israeli bill.

The Israeli Knesset approved in a preliminary reading a draft law that would introduce the death penalty for individuals convicted of “terrorism,” with 39 votes in favor and 16 against Monday evening, according to the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (KAN).

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