Hands and feet in shackles. Eyes blindfolded. No moving. No talking. And, sometimes, violent beatings. Days upon days, weeks upon weeks pass like this at the Sde Teiman facility for Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians from Gaza. These interviewees know. They served there
Shay Fogelman was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1971, raised in Petah Tikva. Graduate of History and Philosophy from Tel Aviv University. Worked as a researcher, cinematographer and script editor in various documentaries. He works as an investigative journalist for Ha'aretz supplement. Editor of Hebrew literature. The documentary CHASING YEHOSHUA (2019) is his latest work.
In the days after the surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, a total of some 120 Hamas militants, members of the movement's Nukhba military wing and Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip were taken into custody in Israel. They were sent to a detention facility specially created on a military police base at the Sde Teiman camp, between the town of Ofakim and Be'er Sheva in the Negev. In the months that followed, more than 4,500 additional inhabitants of the Strip, among them terrorists from various organizations, and civilians, were incarcerated there.
Two months ago, it was learned that the Israel Defense Forces was conducting a criminal investigation against soldiers allegedly involved in the death of 36 detainees in the camp. Last month, 10 reservists were arrested there on suspicion of brutal sexual abuse of an inmate. Regular or reservist soldiers assigned to Sde Teiman are subordinate to the military police, which has ultimate authority over the goings-on there.
In the wake of the many testimonies that surfaced, five human rights organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice, calling for the site to be shut down. In early June, the state announced in response that it intended to transfer most of the detainees to facilities run by the Israel Prison Service and to restore the camp to its original mission "as a facility for temporary, short-term [incarceration] for purposes of interrogation and classification only." In another response to the High Court of Justice earlier this month, the state declared that there were now only 28 detainees in the facility.
Since the war broke out, thousands of Israeli soldiers in regular and reservist forces have served at Sde Teiman. Most were posted there within the framework of a mission with which their unit was tasked. Others volunteered to serve there for a variety of reasons. In recent months, a number of soldiers and medical professionals agreed to talk with Haaretz about their time there. Eight of the testimonies follow, anonymously and in chronological order, from the earliest stint to the most recent.
N., a student from the north, reservist
"I was mobilized with the whole battalion on October 7. We were sent to secure communities in the western Negev, and after two weeks we moved to Be'er Sheva. I was involved in activity not related to the battalion when I saw on the company's WhatsApp group announcements that we had another mission – something new: guard duty at Sde Teiman. It wasn't so clear at first.
"When I got back to my company people were already whispering about the place. Someone asked if I'd heard about what was happening there. Someone else said, 'You know you have to hit people there,' as though he was taunting me and wanted to test my reaction, whether I was a leftist or something like that. There was also a soldier in the company who boasted that he'd beaten people at the facility. He told us that he had gone with a shift officer from the military police and they had beaten one of the detainees with clubs. I was curious about the place, and the stories sounded a little exaggerated to me, so I pretty much volunteered to go there.
"In Sde Teiman we guarded the detainees' lockup. We did 12-hour shifts during the day or night. The battalion's doctors and medics did 24-hour shifts at the field hospital. At the end of each shift we returned to Be'er Sheva to sleep.
"The detainees were in a large hangar with a roof and walls on three sides. Instead of a fourth wall, facing us, there was a fence with a double gate and two locks, like in dog parks. A barbed-wire fence surrounded everything. Our positions were close to the two corners of the fence, at a kind of diagonal, behind concrete blocks in a U shape. A soldier stands at each post, watching the detainees and guarding the military police personnel in charge of operating the place. We did shifts of two hours on, two hours off. If you weren't guarding you could go to the rest area, a kind of tent that had drinks and snacks.
"The inmates sat in eight rows on the ground, with about eight people in each. One hangar held 70 people and the second around 100. The military police told us that they had to sit. They were not allowed to peek out from their blindfolds. They were not allowed to move. They were not allowed to talk. And that if… what they [the military police] said was that if they broke the rules, it was permitted to punish them."
How were they punished?
"For minor things, you could force them to stand in place [for about 30 minutes]. If the person continued to make trouble, or for more serious violations, the military police officer could also take him aside… and beat him with a club."
Do you remember such an incident?
"One time someone took a peek at a female soldier – at least, that's what she claimed… She said he peeked at her from under the blindfold and was doing something under his blanket. The thing is that it was winter and they had 'scabies blankets'… like army issue [rough, coarse blankets]. And they were always scratching underneath. I was at the other post and wasn't looking in that direction. Then she called the officer and told him. The detainee was sitting in the first row and he was like… well, sort of a problematic guy. After all, they're not allowed to talk. It seemed to me that over time, some of them became on edge… unstable. Sometimes they would start to cry, or begin to lose it. He was also one of those, who didn't look very stable.
"When the military police officer arrived, the shawish [a derogatory term with many connotations in Arabic, but used to describe an inmate put in charge of other inmates here] tried to explain to him, 'Listen, it's tough. He's been here for 20 days. He doesn't change clothes and barely ever showers.' Like, the guy tried to mediate for him. But the female soldier said again that he had looked at her. The officer told the shawish to bring the guy to the double gate and to take him outside. In the meantime he [the officer] called another soldier from his company, who was then in the rest area, who was always talking about how he wanted to beat the detainees.
"The soldier grabbed a club and they removed the detainee from the pen and took him to this kind of hidden place behind the chemical toilets near our rest area. I stayed at my post but I heard the sounds, a sort of knocking. About a minute, a minute and a half, went by, and they came back with the guy. You could see red marks on his arms, around the wrists. When they brought him into the lockup he shouted in Arabic, 'I swear I didn't look [at her].' He lifted his shirt and you could see there were bruises and a little blood around the ribs.
"I did a few more shifts there, it was enough for me. And then we were discharged. It wasn't an in-demand task in the company; you could say it was even semi-volunteering, because of its complexity. There was this awareness among the soldiers that it was a tough task… It stinks in there, in those pens. It stinks, so people there wear masks all day, which doesn't really help, either.
"But sometimes there was a sort of amusing atmosphere. Especially toward the end, the task became a type of joke, with people making wisecracks, or videos of detainees, or telling jokes about the shawish. We were always ordering coffee at Aroma [a café] in Be'er Sheva and someone would tell the cashier that their name was shawish – everyone would split a gut when they called him on the loudspeaker [to pick up his order].
"I didn't find it funny. I thought the situation of the shawish was heartbreaking. There were times when the guards would shout 'Quiet!' because the inmates weren't allowed to talk. And then the military police officer would tell the shawish, 'Listen up, if they don't shut up, we'll stand them all on their feet now! So tell them to shut up.' And then the shawish would tell them, 'Hey, listen, keep quiet, otherwise everyone will be punished.' He, like, tried to be nice, even though the situation was impossible from his point of view. And when the mumbling went on, he got upset and shouted at them again and it wasn't clear anymore whether it was from worry – so they wouldn't be beaten – or whether he felt as if he were on the other side, of the guards.
"His conditions were pretty similar to the other detainees' but he wasn't handcuffed or blindfolded. He didn't have to sit erect on the floor. And he was actually quite free to move around, but only in the lockup. I saw him once, after everyone had finished eating, take another slice of bread that was left over, for himself. I don't know what he did in Gaza, but with conditions like these… It's clear he wasn't Nukhba or full-fledged Hamas.
"When I was there, I wrestled with myself about whether to stay on and try to do the right thing, the best I could as a moral person, or whether I should just get up and declare that I refused to take part in it. The thought that the place was going to continue operating after I left depressed me, that a lot more soldiers would end up manning this concrete post. Even though I was only there for a short time, I came out with a heavy feeling of guilt."
Dr. L., a physician in a public hospital
"I arrived in the medical facility at Sde Teiman during the winter. In one hospitalization tent there were no more than 20 patients. All had their four limbs shackled to old steel beds, like the ones used in our hospitals years ago. All were conscious and all were blindfolded all the time.
"There were patients there in different conditions. Some had arrived a very short time after major surgery. There were many with gunshot wounds. There was one who'd been shot in his home in Gaza just a few hours earlier. Every physician knows that what such a person needs is a day or two in intensive care and then to be moved to a ward; it's only there that recovery will actually start. But the person was sent to a pen in Sde Teiman two hours after surgery. To a tent. At the hospital, they would have said that he could be released. I dispute that. Patients like that in hospitals are in intensive care. It's totally clear.
"There was another patient suffering from a systemic infection – sepsis. He was in critical condition, and even according to the protocol, he should not have been there. Only patients who are completely stable are supposed to be hospitalized at Sde Teiman. But he was there and they said there was no alternative.
"Other than the fact that there was no surgeon there, which is inconceivable at a place like that, the medical team was very professional. Everyone really tried – if you ignore the fact, that in my eyes, at least… to hold a person without letting them move any of their limbs, blindfolded, naked, under treatment, in the middle of the desert… in the end it's no less than torture. There are ways to administer even poor treatment, or even to torture a person, without crushing cigarettes on them. And to hold them like that, unable to see, move or talk, for a week, 10 days, a month… that is no less than torture. Especially when it's clear that there is no medical reason. Why shackle the legs of a person with a two-day-old stomach wound? The hands aren't enough?
"The thing is that when I was there, it all somehow looked normal to me, because there are excuses [for sending them to the camp's hospital], and the medical work takes place in a normal, familiar space. But in the end, what's happening there is total dehumanization. You don't really relate to them as if they're real human beings. It's easy to forget that when they don't move and you don't have to talk to them. You just have to check off that some medical procedure was done, and along the way you remove the whole human dimension of medicine."
Did you have any interaction with the patients?
"No. Absolutely not. They are not allowed to talk, and the interpreters are there only to help when it comes to strictly medical subjects. They [the patients] don't even know who I am, whether I'm a soldier, or… they didn't see me. They probably only heard and felt that someone had arrived to examine them, or something like that.
"It frustrated me terribly that I couldn't look them in the eyes. That isn't how I learned to treat patients, no matter what they've done. And what's most shocking is that when I was there, I have to admit… I wasn't even sad. It all felt so surrealistic to me, just a quarter of an hour's drive from Be'er Sheva. Like, everything I'd been taught, all the years in university and in hospitals, how to treat people – all that exists, but in an environment in which 20 people are being held naked in a tent. It's something you can't imagine. I understand, if we were fighting in Afghanistan, there I can somehow grasp [the existence of] a field hospital like that. But here?
"Looking back, what's most difficult for me is what I felt, or actually what I didn't feel, when I was there. It disturbs me that it didn't bother me, that somehow I looked at things but didn't see them, or somehow… felt fine about them. How could I not have asked about the small details? Why are they covered with blankets? Why are they anonymous? Why are we anonymous? How can it be that they pee and poop in a disposable diaper? Why are they given a straw to eat with... like, why?
"I guess it was clear to me already there that what was going on was not right, but not to what extent. Maybe there's a process of habituation. You're among professionals, speaking Hebrew, and we were already used to seeing handcuffed prisoners in hospitals. So somehow… the process becomes normalized there and at some stage it simply stops bothering you."
T., 37, a reservist from the north
"My battalion was called up a few days after October 7, and we did a month of guarding in communities near the Gaza border. During the winter we were called up again for reserve duty, but suddenly they said we would also be doing guarding tasks at Sde Teiman. That was a total surprise.
"I was there for 20 days. The place was divided then into four main pens, with two hangars in each. One of the pens also had an additional small hangar, for minors. All in all there were nine hangars and in each one there were between 50 and 100 detainees, except for the one with the minors, where there were maybe between 10 and 20.
"In each hangar everyone had the same clothing, blue, and a sort of orangish-yellow blindfold. They wore flip-flops and each had a yoga mat, only thinner, and they weren't allowed to budge from it. During the day they were not allowed to lie down; at night they're not allowed to sit. Standing was not allowed at all without authorization. And they're not allowed to talk. Most of the time they would sit with arms shackled, and blindfolded. Actually, not most – they're like that all the time, day and night."
Bound from behind or in front?
"Generally in front. They are shackled from behind as punishment; there were some whose legs were also shackled. There was this scale of how dangerous they were, from 1 to 4. The ones who were ranked high, like 4, would sit up front, so they would be closer to the guards. I saw the lists a little. Mainly the Nukhbas were classified as 4. I don't know if the lists were supposed to be open to everyone, but they were around in the office of the military police and there were soldiers who saw them. I understood that a rank of 3 is a Hamas militant who isn't Nukhba but is a fighter. Two is someone who is affiliated with Hamas but isn't a fighter. And someone ranked as 1 is someone who isn't affiliated with any organization. About 20 percent were ranked in the 4 group, and they all sat up front and their legs were also shackled. I don't know why.
"Wake-up is at about 5 A.M., when the military police officers would arrive for their shifts. They use megaphones and get everyone to stand up. Immediately afterward, there's a head count. The duty officer arrives and reads out the names. Everyone who hears their name answers 'Yes, captain' [in Hebrew] and then sits down. Then they have prayers. Each person prays to himself, then they bring in a crate with food that the shawish distributes; it's usually four or five slices of bread and something to spread on them. In the morning it's cheese, at lunch tuna, and in the evening jam or something like that. And also a fruit or vegetable."
Who does the spreading on the bread?
"They do it themselves."
Blindfolded?
"Yes. They can even do it with a blindfold. It's not totally hermetic; they probably see what's close by and under them. They also walk to the toilet like that and don't run into the walls. So I assume they see something."
And they have disposable utensils?
"I don't think I saw anything like that."
So they spread the cheese or the tuna with their fingers?
"Yes."
And where is the toilet?
"In the pen. There are two or three chemical toilets there. But they have to ask permission to go. If they want to drink water, they raise hands and the shawish goes over and gets it. Sometimes the police officer might give them two minutes to stand up and stretch. I didn't completely understand the rules or when that happens. Sometimes it was once a day, sometimes three times a week.
"Anyone who violates the instructions, whispers or tries to move his blindfold gets a punishment. The easiest punishment was to [be made to] stand up. The next stage was to stand with arms raised. The next is they're taken out of the facility and given something like four or five blows with a club. Somewhere in the upper body, not the face."
Where does that happen?
"Outside the lockup area. The person is taken to a more hidden place, or to a corner where people don't see [what's going on]."
Whom do the people [meting out the punishment] have to hide from?
"Good question… I don't know. Maybe from the control room [in a closed compound on the site, off-limits to soldiers] that observed them. It was said that there someone was watching them all the time, at least in theory."
Who would do the hitting?
"Usually the military police officers."
Why do you say "usually"?
"Like, there were actually cases of soldiers who were really gung-ho to hit, so they would ask… and they [the military police] would sometimes agree to let them. But usually it was the officers themselves."
Then why did they agree sometimes to let the soldiers do it?
"I don't know, I think it was a sort of deviation, but I'm not sure whether it was against the rules or just against the custom. There was a bit of a feeling that it wasn't really right to allow soldiers to do it."
How did the detainees react?
"Generally, they were pretty quiet at that stage. Because sometimes they would cry out during the blows, but after that, when they were brought back to the lockups, they were pretty submissive."
During an average shift, how many punishments were there?
"I would say… once every two hours there was a case of beating. There were more punishments of being forced to stand up. Most of the time someone was standing."
Were there other incidents involving violence?
"Yes. The punishments involved relatively minor violence. The more extreme violence was in the body searches of all inmates in the pen. A search was really something very, very… a lot more violent. Mostly, it was done by Force 100. At first it wasn't clear to us if that was something official or if these were just people who call themselves Force 100 [a unit of IDF reservists that is under the command of the military police] and have this kind of tag attached to their uniform. Afterward it became more institutionalized. They are reservists but they have the whole wassah [soldiers' arrogant pretense] thing that's big in the army now, the whole facade. They have a tactical uniform and walk around in ski masks with special gear, and there also an air of secrecy about them.
"People said they were guys from special-ops units who were supposed to deal with serious disturbances. So they conduct these searches, once or twice a week, in each of the pens. When they showed up for a search, a whole bunch of people and officers accompanied them. I don't know exactly what their role was. They would stand there, pretty much observing.
"Usually for a search, a Force 100 team of about 10 fighters showed up. They made the detainees lie on their stomachs, hands behind their head. During the first search I saw, after they were lying down, five inmates were taken out each time, according to some sort of order. They took them out violently, stood them up outside, faces to the fence, and searched them. Usually they pulled one of them out – I don't know whether randomly or not – and threw him onto the ground. They searched him there and also beat him a little. It looked like an excuse to sow terror. It wasn't an ordinary search. It was very violent, certainly for the guys they threw on the ground, who were beaten badly. They kept going, [taking] five at a time, until they searched them all and brought them back in.
"And there was something else. Force 100 would take something like 10 people from each lockup. They came with lists and knew who the people were. They took those guys aside and really laid into them. I know that this list was prepared by the military police and not by Military Intelligence or the Shin Bet [security service]. In other words, it wasn't in order to extract intelligence from them. They came with a list of names and beat them viciously. It was blows at a level that… I think that each time teeth were broken, bones were broken. Because there were really powerful blows."
Where was it done?
"For the blows themselves they were taken aside, to a more hidden place. The rest of the soldiers and detainees remained standing ... I saw those beatings: Six or 7 men, from Force 100, stand around one guy and kick him. Blows, slaps, punches, everything. Two or three of them stood to the side with weapons as guards. And there was also a dog."
How long did this last?
"Until they got tired of it. There were also times when they invited regular soldiers to take part in the beatings, from the guard units or from the military police. I don't know whether it was coordinated in advance with them, or they just called on them spontaneously, but it was a type of gesture to certain soldiers, who were in the loop.
"There were instances when I didn't see the beatings, but I did hear the punches or the shouts. They were very intense, the shouts. They were more intense than what I sometimes heard in other interrogations. Now, all this time, the dogs were also coming and barking and jumping on them. With a muzzle, yes, but scratching them and really scary. Ah… at the beginning there was also a stun grenade. Yes, every time a search like that started, Force 100 threw a stun grenade into the pen."
How long did [the procedure] go on for?
"It took time. There's a lot of people. It could take an hour, an hour and a half. A long time.
"The second search I saw was almost the same as the first, only it took place inside – the detainees weren't led out. After they threw the stun grenade and everyone was lying down, Force 100 entered and took five people each time, stuck them in some corner of the pen and did the same thing: a very violent search. And then, when they returned the detainees, they simply threw them back into their places."
What do you mean, "threw"?
"Threw them. Like, they threw the guy and he falls down, on other people. He's blindfolded and shackled and he can't even brace himself for the fall."
And none of the people around said anything?
"No one. There were a lot of people, including officers, it wasn't something that was done in the dark. That kind of thing happened in the lockup, so everyone saw what was going on. There were two or three lieutenant colonels there from the military police. It's not something that was done behind the back of the commander of the camp. I don't know if that was procedure, but it looked as though the soldiers knew exactly what they were doing. And the officers… yes, they stood there, they were the commanders of Force 100. It didn't look like the force decided on its own to do that."
Do you know why those particular detainees were beaten?
"I didn't see and don't know. Maybe they behaved badly? There were also people there that I saw with military police lists [of names]. Like, there was one who was involved in October 7, so they took him out each time and beat him."
On various occasions?
"Right."
What opportunities were there, for beating him?
"Because of the searches, I think his legs were broken, so every time he had to stand for the head count, for example, and he couldn't stand up. So that was an excuse to take him out and beat him some more."
But did he get beaten during every head count?
"Not in every head count, but quite a lot. Quite a lot."
Did he say anything?
"No, he looked exhausted. Sometimes he begged them to stop."
And among yourselves, among the soldiers, did anyone have questions about what was going on there?
"There were soldiers, mainly female soldiers, who went into a kind of panic attack when they saw a search. But there were plenty who were enthusiastic about doing those shifts, who wanted to be there. Even the officers from my company looked for an excuse to show up. It fills you with adrenaline… like, when I was in the situation, too… it's not some ordinary sort of situation. It causes stress. The rest of the time it's boring in the tent of the rest area, and there's not much interaction between the soldiers. There's a few tables, you sit, pass the time, and suddenly it happens. There's action.
"Most of the guys were just fine with what was happening. There were some who were a little bothered by it, and there were others who were bothered by it at the start and then they toed the line with the system. The excuses were that 'it's wartime,' 'they are terrible' and 'there's no other way to impose discipline on them.'
"One of the hardest things for me wasn't necessarily the beatings, but that they were shackled all the time, without being able to see or move. That's the toughest torture there is. When we spoke among the guys sometimes, there were people who in conversations suddenly mentioned the word 'torture.' And then we said, it's torture. But you don't get into it; you change the subject immediately.
"I also cared less as time went on. The first shifts were very hard. But afterward it doesn't create the same level of tension anymore. There's nothing you can do. There's the same stimulus, all the time. The brain gets used to it."
Were there moments when humane gestures did take place there?
"It happened. But it was rare. Sometimes the military police gave the minors candy, like in the evening, before sleep. One time a detainee started to cry. He was older, 60 years old. So the duty officer tried to speak to him and cheer him up a little. Through the sawish, he tried to find out, 'Who is he? Why is he here?' The detainee said he was an ordinary teacher, until he had been taken away. He asked to be treated like a human being. Something similar went on with that same officer and one of the minors, who also started to cry: He asked him what he would like to be when he grows up. And in the end he told him things would be alright.
"That was rare, very rare. I think that the officer was in a sort of liberated mood that day, because it was his last shift."
A., student and reservist in the military police
"I served in the unit that received the detainees at Sde Teiman during the war's first months. They arrived almost every day, at night too. Generally straight from the field, escorted by fighters or MPs. They came to us with hands bound, sometimes wearing clothes and sometimes only in underpants, or something that hid their private parts."
What is "something"?
"A cloth or some rag, something they found there. In the intake area, they were taken off the tiyulit [open truck with benches for transporting people] and arranged in rows. They would wait there until we took them into the office, one by one. There we asked them basic things, like where they were taken into custody, where they live, and we fed the information into the computer. They would undergo a preliminary interrogation in the field, but we didn't get details in advance about who they were or what they had done. We removed their blindfolds for a few minutes, just for the photograph.
"I enlisted believing, and I still believe, that the army knows how to achieve its goals, even if it's not always understood by the ordinary soldier. Even if it looks bad from the outside. I have met many principled people in the reserves, but there were also some who were not. Some of each.
"At first, because not enough reservists showed up, they brought in girls from the military police's Gahelet unit to receive the detainees. They are mostly in the regular army and work with prisoners [in rehabilitation], but they weren't prepared for the Nukhbas. At first people arrived here, some of whom were wounded from the fighting. Not a pretty sight, especially those who were caught in Israel and arrived after having undergone a tough interrogation in the field. It was apparently hard for the Gahelet soldiers to cope mentally, so they brought in a mental health officer, who spoke with them. Afterward they went back to their mission. Some of them sometimes cracked.
"You also have to remember the period. This base was a reflection of the atmosphere in the country. In the initial months, someone is standing facing you and you don't know what he did. If he's Nukhba, if he raped, if he murdered, if he even deserves to live. And you're filled with rage. Everyone is filled with rage. There's a desire for revenge. Of course, no one thinks they have to be coddled or anything, but still, the majority also didn't think that we needed to be the ones who do the punishing.
"But to say that there were no people who took a little bit of force into their hands? Sure there were. But what I saw, at least with my eyes, was really small-scale. Mostly when the detainees weren't quiet, or something like that. And sometimes for no reason, I don't know, I would call it insecure people who are trying to take out their aggressions. But not actually extreme things. Not things that I would say overwhelmed me."
Can you give an example?
"So, sometimes in the intake area, there were people who suddenly pushed someone who hadn't done anything, or hit someone for not being quiet. It was usually the soldiers who had brought them from the field. I saw things like slapping, humiliating people, pushing someone to the floor and then telling him to sit, even though he had been sitting before. But there was never an order from above to behave like that, it's just specific people who felt comfortable doing it."
Were there exceptional events?
"Now that you bring it up, I remember a story with a tiyulit. There were soldiers who threw Palestinians off it."
Threw them?
"Instead of taking them down by the steps, they simply pushed them off, from the height of the vehicle's floor. Down to the ground."
Were they bound and blindfolded?
"Yes. Handcuffed. Maybe also by the legs. They just fell, like a stone."
Was anyone injured?
"In my opinion, yes. A person was injured there."
Was anyone punished for that?
"Not that I know of. In the days that followed, we were told that it wasn't okay. The commanders at the facility said that we needed to make sure that didn't happen again."
Did you have dilemmas during your service there?
"I suppose some came up, I don't exactly remember. But as I said, I came to do the work without thinking too much about it. I relied on the idea that the bigger system knows what it needs to do and why it needed me there. I trust the army. And everything I saw at Sde Teiman looked to me, all in all, very logical, under the circumstances."
R., student and reservist, from Tel Aviv
"I was called up with my battalion on October 11. For almost two months we guarded communities. We returned to reserve duty in April, and suddenly we were informed that we were being sent to Sde Teiman. That was really weird at such short notice. A friend from the company who's involved in battalion headquarters said that they hit us with it at the last moment so we wouldn't have time to digest it. I think they wanted to prevent objections.
"When we arrived, the commander of the facility, an MP with the rank of lieutenant colonel, immediately gave us a talk. He said that this was 'a very important task, which is difficult and challenging.' He said they were fulfilling all the [legal] conditions, that they 'provide all the medical services and food with the required amount of calories,' and that 'everything is done according to the law.' He said that he was subject to review and that he was under close supervision. He told us that his soldiers were very disciplined and that we were not supposed to have any interaction with the detainees. In the end, he again went on about how everything there was proper and lawful.
What does it smell like?
"Like the smell of dozens of people who have been sitting in close quarters for more than a month in the same clothes and in insane heat. They let them shower for a few minutes around twice a week, but I don't remember ever seeing that they gave them a change of clothes, in any case not on my shifts.
"I came there with the mindset of a soldier. Let us do our time, without asking anything, and then go home. But two incidents happened in the wake of which I couldn't continue there any longer.
"The first was in one of the pens. Guys came from the escort force, who in my opinion were military police reservists. They came in like big shots, with ski masks, and led three or four detainees out. They made them walk bent over, handcuffed and with flannelette on their faces. Each of them held the shirt of the person in front of him. And then suddenly I saw one of the police officers, right at the entrance to the pen, take the head of the first detainee and 'boom,' smash him with force into some iron part of the door. And then he smashed him again and said 'Yalla.' The moment I saw that I went into total shock. It was simply right opposite me… suddenly I saw someone with the thought going through his head that, 'Fine, this is not a human being. I can simply bash his head against the door. Just because I feel like it.' The nonchalant way he did it stunned me. He didn't look angry or full of hatred, he even laughed at it."
Did anyone there say anything?
"No."
Were there other violent incidents while you were at the facility?
"Yes, but it wasn't 'Yalla, let's take them apart.' And also, think: This is a procedure [that demands an effort]. You need to take the guy, get an escort, open two locks, take him out, bring him to a place on the side… let's say without cameras. It's hard to do that. So you don't do it casually.
"The more extreme cases come in the wake… for example, a female soldier from the company said that a detainee peeked at her and touched himself sexually. So they brought in Force 100, who beat him viciously. There was also a case when Force 100 came to deal with a detainee who gave a soldier the finger. I didn't see that, but the guys were pretty excited. When they got back from the shift, they talked enthusiastically about the beating he took. Overall, everyone knows where there are cameras. All the relatively extreme things that happened there were in areas not covered by the cameras.
"The second incident that knocked me for a loop was during a night shift in the hospital. I was sitting, bored, with a military police officer outside there, when one of the detainees inside asked for something, or cried. The officer was a Druze. I asked him if he knew what the story was with this detainee. He said he didn't and asked whether I was interested. I said I was. So he went into the tent."
Is that allowed?
"No way! You're not allowed to talk to them at all, not under any circumstances and not about anything. We were told all the time, 'Be careful what you say next to them. Don't talk about anything having to do with the news, about people killed, Rafah… They listen and collect intelligence.' You can't even mention names next to them. You call one another by your first initial.
"But when there are no officers in the vicinity, everyone does what they feel like doing. No one is particularly careful about anything. That's the IDF… For example, you're not allowed to have a cellphone in any place where there is interaction with inmates. During the day, no one would dare. At night, when there are no senior personnel, female military police officers would sit and watch Turkish telenovelas the whole shift. How did the documentation arrive from there? Soldiers with phones.
"Anyway, the [Druze] officer spoke with him for a few minutes in Arabic, and at the end the Palestinian began to cry. Weeping frantically. Then the officer came out, half guffawing, trying not to laugh. He said the guy talked about his life in Gaza, about his job, his family. He said he had gone to visit his brother, who was hospitalized in Shifa [Hospital], and that he was arrested there. When I asked, 'So why is he crying?' the officer said, 'Ah… he misses his wife, children, the family. He has no idea what's happening with them.'
"I don't know why the officer laughed. Maybe it was embarrassment, maybe he was contemptuous of the story, like he didn't believe it. But at the end of the shift, when I was about to go to sleep… Boom! The thoughts started to race. I sat on my bed and for hours I googled laws related to the incarceration of unlawful combatants. I did a session on ChatGPT and asked about crimes and rules of war. The next day I realized that I couldn't continue there any longer."
What was so dramatic about that moment?
"The detainee's story, and the fact that he started to cry in the end. It was a very human and surprising display after all the preparation and the things they tell you there. They keep pumping it into your brain that you have to disconnect. That they're not people. That they're not human beings."
Who said things like that?
"The guys, the company commander, the officers, everyone. You know, there was a female officer who gave us a briefing on the day we arrived. She said, 'It will be hard for you. You'll want to pity them, but it's forbidden. Remember that they aren't people. From your point of view, they are not human beings. The best thing is to remember who they are and what they did in October.'
"Until then I'd seen [television] reports, things they said on the news about the place. I also saw videos of released Gazans who talk about what goes on there. But suddenly, when you're in it, they become real people. You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity in a second, how easy it is to come up with justifications for treating people as if they're not people. It's like in the movie 'The Wave' [a 1981 film about a high-school teacher who does a simulation experiment with his students how easily they can be made to lose their humanity]. Only in your face, and live. It was insane to see how that happens."
H., 27, student and reservist (female)
"I was a squad commander of new recruits in the regular army, and I was discharged after my service around six years ago. I'd never been called up for reserve duty, until May when I received an SMS with an emergency call-up order, 'for a meaningful task in the Military Police Corps.' Without any elaboration. I understood from friends that we were being mobilized to guard security detainees.
"I arrived there and was given a number. I sat myself down in the waiting compound, under a canopy with tables on which there was popcorn, coffee slush and cotton candy. There was music in the background, like at a festival. There were a lot of people and it was horribly hot. In the meantime, I heard conversations around me. Some people said they intended to beat the detainees or spit in their food. Good people whom I know talked about being cruel and abusive to people, like they were talking about something routine. No one around protested or squirmed uncomfortably. No one talked about the law or about the role of the authorities.
"The dehumanization frightened me. I couldn't understand how a group of young people who were around me every day underwent such a dangerous process in such a short time. Of course I understand the pain and the fear, which have also accompanied me since October, but I didn't believe to what extent they'd succeeded to distort the concept of reality of the people living around me. I felt an obligation to document what I heard. I took out my phone and began transcribing everything I heard [following is an excerpt from her transcript, which she titled]: '2 June 2024 testimony: reserve call-up of female squad commanders to military police. Conversations around: "We'll beat them with clubs." "I will just spit on them." "How do you plan to beat terrorists?" "I think this is a mission, the task." "Why do they even deserve conditions like these?" "The truth is that I'm between jobs and a tenner actually suited me." "Do you really want to do this?" – "Yes, I want money," with a wink.'
"So, we sat down for the briefing. An amiable military police officer entered and started talking: 'You are probably asking what you're doing here. We are the military police. Our task in [this] emergency is enemy detainees.' He elaborated on how many had been taken into custody and which facilities they had been taken to, and then he emphasized: 'It's important for you to understand, for the return of the hostages we need to return prisoners, so we're holding them for the deals. At the moment, they are a strategic asset of the IDF.'
"When the questions and objections started, he got tough. 'You're all here under an emergency order. You have to serve in the job. I'm here to mediate [reality] for you. Until a month ago there was no slushy or popcorn here. People were called up, of course, and they were told: Shalom, you are going to serve as a prison guard for an indefinite time.'
"Someone asked, 'How can you call up girls for a task like that?' [Meaning,] because of the harassment and all. The officer replied that they are handcuffed, with flannelette over their eyes, in a cage with bars. 'In other words, you have no direct contact with them.' One of the participants said: 'What bothers me is that morally, I don't see myself bringing them food. I can't imagine myself seeing to their needs.'
"The officer replied: 'Under international law we are obligated to bring them a certain amount of food. After all, the army could simply kill them. But the army needs them. And don't worry, it's not like they're being pampered there.'
"He went on 'reassuring' us that we would not be in any situation of danger. 'If, say, the inmates want to quarrel among themselves, as far as we're concerned they can hit each other and kill one another. We will not intervene and we will not endanger any of our people.'
"In the end he said, 'Remember that this is a moral mission, and an important one, and the army needs you. And also, because it's an emergency order, you will be paid and anyone who wants to continue after this month will receive no few grants and benefits. It really pays.'
"I returned home scared. The kind of talk I heard in informal conversations was being given an official military platform. It scared me that the officer didn't respond clearly to the dehumanizing talk. The encounter with such dangerous concepts, which had become normal in our society, was traumatic for me. It was clear to me that I would not be able to take part in it, and I got out of reserve duty with the help of a psychiatrist."
A., student and reservist, from Be'er Sheva
"I was called up for reserve duty in October, I fought in Gaza, and I was discharged in January. In May I volunteered for another stint of reserve duty, at Sde Teiman. I saw an announcement on Facebook that soldiers were needed for backup, and it said that these were day shifts and that the work could be suitable for students, too. So I went, mainly for the pay. I also wanted to be there a little. Friends of mine died at Nova, and I was curious to see up-close the people who did it.
"I happened to serve there with a few reserve battalions, and you could say that most of the soldiers really didn't like the job. Because of that there was a huge shortage of manpower, and they needed people like me – people who would come to round off shifts.
"I arrived there with a lot of apprehension. I'd read things in the newspapers, and there was also fear of the place itself. After all, you're guarding terrorists, murderers, from a meter away; and they also know how to fight. But that was just during the initial shifts. Over time you get used to it, and in general I didn't sense a feeling of true fear on the ground.
"I did guard duty in the pens and in the hospitals. No complaints about the medical team. They are angels. Do you know what it is to change a diaper for a terrorist and wipe his bottom? And they do it with relative dignity and without humiliation. Sometimes there were a few laughs about patients, or they would call them names, maybe insulting ones. But overall they were doing sacred work.
"When I was there, they moved them to a new facility. Six large tents, with flooring and an air conditioner. And they brought plenty of new equipment. I understood that because there had been some criticism by that time, the more time that passed, the more moderate it became there. There was talk, for example in briefings before the missions, that 'they used to be punished by making them stand with their arms raised,' but that's not legal or whatever.
"Because of the pressure from outside there was a constant fear of leaks, of the media. All the time they told us to talk as little as possible. Like, what happens in Sde Teiman, stays in Sde Teiman. That's the atmosphere. Photographing was taboo. They said that was very serious and that if pictures leaked out, they would bring in the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.
"They [the detainees] sit only within the area of the mattress and all the time with manacles and blindfolded. And you grasp what this does to them. You absolutely see the difference between the new arrivals and the ones who have been there for weeks. People lose it under such conditions. I did an experiment at home, with an air conditioner, on the carpet. I wanted to check. I sat with a kerchief on my head, without handcuffs and not hungry. Just with a blindfold and a watch that would buzz in an hour. After 10 minutes I felt like I wanted to die. After another 10 minutes I cracked.
"Imagine that, day after day, a week, a month. I have the feeling that because the state is afraid they will return to Gaza one day, they decided to turn them into zombies. They took these people and decided to screw them to the point where, in another 50 years, when they're walking on the street in Gaza, people will point at them and say, 'You see him, that poor guy… many years ago, he decided to attack Israel.'
"I believe that most of the people who were there are not good people. It's not for no reason that the army comes and takes them. But here's also just the Hamas quartermaster, or some clerk. And there were also innocent people, especially at the start, when classification in the field was less meticulous. I don't understand the logic of keeping people in conditions like these. It's not punishment; life there… is day-to-day torture.
"In the briefings it's explained that everything has a reason. For example, speaking is forbidden so they won't pass information and won't coordinate between them. The mattress is thin so they won't hide weapons. The punishment – for deterrence. Handcuffs – because they are very dangerous. One military police officer, who looked like a veteran, once explained to me that 'the army wasn't prepared to take in thousands.' Okay. But six, seven, nine months have passed, and you haven't found a better solution? Really, now."
Did you witness any irregularities?
"Depends how you define irregularity. In my everyday life, I don't encounter a level of violence like that, of curses and humiliation. So yes, every minute there is irregular. At the personal level, I went through one event there that changed my whole attitude to the place.
"It was in one of the first shifts. I was sitting in the gazebo of the prison camp, in a break between shifts, when a military police officer with a rubber club came over and said, 'Come with me, we have to deal with someone who's making trouble.' I went with him and with another soldier and we removed a detainee, who was about 40 or so. He had a bandaged leg and he limped a little. We took him to the side of the lockup, to an area that you don't really see, and the military police officer hit him four times on the back with the club and while doing it shouted at him, 'Be quiet! From now on – uskut ["keep quiet" in Arabic]!'
"The Palestinian raised his hands and tried to protect the back of his neck, even though the club didn't land there. And then, while he was being beaten, he shifted the blindfold by mistake and it fell to his neck. That set off the officer and he started to beat him even harder. The Palestinian fell to the ground, it looked as though he was giving up, that he had no more strength to stand and he was simply collapsing. And then he started to shout, in Arabic, "Laish? Laish?' – like, 'Why? Why?'… And from the ground, while he was maybe trying to protect himself with his hands, he suddenly looked at me.
"He looked me in the eyes and begged, 'Laish? Laish?' His eyes were brown and large, and bulging from the sockets from all the pain. His veins swelled up, he was red and obviously suffering. I stood there, shocked. Never in my life had I seen a look like that. The shouts stressed out the military police officer a bit, so he cursed him and spat on him. And then he was taken back to the pen.
"The event really shook me up. I stayed on at Sde Teiman after it, true, but a lot less enthusiastic, a lot less happy."
Did you take part in the beating?
"I prefer not to answer. And not necessarily for the reason that might seem obvious. It was an irregular situation for me and I very much want to forget it. But it wasn't irregular for the place. Sometimes a soldier wallops someone for no reason. Many more things happen. People allow themselves [to do things], especially in places where there is no supervision. Or there were cases in which people came to give someone a beating in order to take revenge [for October 7]. Or… that… I don't know whether to call it that… people are sadistic."
Meaning what?
"If the definition of a sadist is someone who enjoys causing another to suffer, then I can give examples from all parts of the scale. One evening I was doing guard duty in the prison camp. There was a reserve battalion there, veteran guys who did a lot of barbecues and listened to music in the rest compound. The tent was pretty far from the camp, but the smell wafts there sometimes, and also the music. So I smelled the meat while I was at my guard post; I could see that the detainees were smelling it in the air, too. I think they were pretty tormented by that. When I finished my shift, I passed by the tent and one of the guys asked if I wanted pita with kebab. I told him I didn't feel comfortable with that, there were hungry people so close. He made a face. Like I was being self-righteous, a moralist. And then he smiled and said, 'Why? For me, it's a lot tastier like this, when they're suffering.'
"It's clear to me that they don't deserve meat. And if I'd known that they get enough food, even shitty food, but that they're not hungry, it would be different. Like, how is it possible to enjoy food when you know that someone else is hungry? Even if it's your worst enemy.
"At the other end of the scale, there were people there who came to vent their anger. Who volunteers to serve there? Only those who really enjoy beating up Arabs. I saw them removing people from vehicles, always with violence, curses, spitting. They wear tactical uniforms, gloves, face masks and all that – all kinds of macho swaggering of gung-ho types. There too there's a thing of looking frightening and threatening in the face of the detainees. Actually, we're talking about frustrated people. With all the bluster, it's not that they're fighting in tunnels or blowing up buildings in Rafah. They're coping with manacled, hungry people. It's not very hard to be strong against them. So I'm not an expert in the field, and I didn't study psychology, but yes, I saw sadists there. People who enjoy causing suffering to others."
How did other soldiers react to this situation?
"[With responses like,] 'You know who they are and what they are,' you know, the usual excuses: 'They have it coming,' or 'it's necessary, because it's a war.'
"I felt that there was blindness there by choice, that this was the way to live with the dissonance the place creates. That really stands out in the double meaning that words have. You say one thing, and everyone understands the additional meaning exactly. For example, when they say to take someone 'aside,' it's obvious to everyone that the intention is to take them outside the range of the cameras. Or in one of the searches of Force 100 they picked up a detainee and took him to a corner. When they came to lowering him to the floor, suddenly one of them says, 'Hey! Are you resisting me?' And right away everyone around starts kicking, punching and shouting, 'He's resisting.'
"I'm standing there and I see exactly what's going on. He didn't resist in any way. He was thrown onto the floor, he tried to protect his head, his face, with his hands, to curl up. And they keep going. It was clear to everyone standing there that he didn't really resist. Because that's what there was in reality. But afterward, when I spoke with a soldier who was there and saw everything, he justified the beating and said, 'That's what has to be done to a detainee who resists.' I was silent. I understood that he was blind to the truth, by choice.
"They would bring us an inmate and say, 'He's dangerous.' And you know, that statement, that he's dangerous, is meaningless. And even if he is. What is he going to do? His hands and legs are already bound, and even so he's placed in the front row in the hangar. I understood that word – 'dangerous' – to be like a hint. Like they're telling us that later it will be possible to beat him savagely. And that's how it was, too.
"By the way, you're not allowed to say 'lockup' anymore. At some stage they said it's not politically correct and that from now on we have to say 'incarceration facility.' But that was just about at the end.
"In hindsight, it was slightly naïve to think that if I went to do guard duty in Sde Teiman, I would be able to understand something about the Nukhbas and about what they did in October. I didn't actually imagine them having horns, but I thought I would encounter extreme hatred, ideology. In the end, they're just plain despicable people, but still, human beings.
"It takes time to digest things. The more distance I have from the place, the more my eyes have opened up.What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes, when they're in the midst of a shocking human situation."
Y., a female member of a medical team
"I recently completed a stint at the Sde Teiman hospital. I got there after the army put in a call to hospitals a few months ago to find people to staff the site. That grabbed me as a citizen and as the mother of a soldier, who was in Gaza. So when the call came and it was described as a 'national mission,' I said yes. Without knowing anything about the place or the mission. The first 24 hours there were not easy. [But] I didn't think I would be in a state of shock."
What surprised you so much?
"The place was totally unimaginable, I had never considered anything like it. My first thought was: What have I done? But then I got into the work. The next morning, I took a deep breath and said to myself: Okay, I know how to treat people, the goal is clear – we need to provide treatment in order to get information. They [the detainees] have information that may help protect my son. They have information that can save the sons of others. I decided I would do the best I could. Like I do everywhere.
"The facility is managed largely by the Health Ministry, because there's no other option. On October 7, they [wounded Hamas personnel] were taken to various hospitals, but then La Familia [an ultra-nationalist group from Jerusalem] showed up and raised a ruckus, there were threats and it was hard to provide treatment. No hospital director wants that sort of trouble.
"I don't know what went on at Sde Teiman in the first months, before I got there. But apparently, due to all the criticism, the first field hospital was moved to a new facility, much larger and equipped with air conditioners. Every morning we would arrive to help with procedures, treatment, follow-up. Urgent cases were brought in also during the afternoon and at night. Because there wasn't much of a response [from medical personnel, to serve at the site] most of the team consisted of pretty old reservists. Some were even 70 and 80. They are more proficient and more mentally resilient.
"Nothing complicated is done there, only at other hospitals. What that means is that if someone [brought in from Gaza] had surgery, then after a few hours of recovery, if he was not bleeding or had high blood pressure, etc., he would be brought immediately to us, even if was the middle of the night. And they tried very hard for the media not to hear about it; it's in and out quickly.
"Every day they got vegetables, a protein and a food additive two or three times a day, in a kind of bottle. Most could take the food by hand and drink from a bottle with a straw, or hold the vegetable. Those who couldn't, someone from the staff helped."
And the diapers?
"For those who needed them. Those who could manage with a pot would use one; if not, then a diaper. I don't know why the media reported that they get a catheter. What they had is not a catheter, it is an external thing, like a condom with a hole and a tube that is connected to a bag. In terms of comfort, that's preferable. If you're lying in a wet diaper, it's not pleasant. It's used in a situation where the inmate can't get to the toilet. Those who could, would pee into a bottle, like in a hospital.
"The conditions there [in the camp] were described as torture. Maybe. In many senses, yes, I agree with that. Maybe even insane torture. But I don't have the tools to judge. I'm not knowledgeable about the subject. I can talk about the medical care, and the treatment there is good. When there were articles saying that all of their limbs were in shackles – okay, what's new? Even before October, every time a terrorist was brought to us for treatment in a [regular] hospital, he would arrive in handcuffs. So I don't understand what's new."
Is it necessary?
"I wasn't there to judge. That's the reality I encountered. Once a day the duty person would come to the hospital to check that none of the handcuffs was too tight. That they weren't slicing the flesh. There's a check every day to see that there was space, that at least two fingers could pass under each cuff.
"I didn't know a thing about my patients, even those there for a long time. We were given a prisoner number. When I returned to work as usual in my department, after a period at Sde Teiman, I was happy. What a joy to know my patients' names."
Are they blindfolded all the time?
"Yes. That is a military decision, not a medical one. And… one time I asked why, and I was told that these people are dangerous and they [the military authorities] don't want them to see the people on the team."
There has been testimony about acts of brutal violence in the detention facility. Did you receive people whose limbs were broken but not on the battlefield?
"No, I never saw… beyond the… no. Never. I also don't know what they were hurt from before they got to us. That's not my job."
Broken teeth, serious contusions?
"No. Nothing. No way. Not only did I not see, I also didn't even hear. And if such things had happened, I would have been shocked. Maybe things were different before I arrived. Don't forget October 7 and the two to three months that followed. That is not the situation today. I believe there was very great anger. Trauma. But when I was there, I didn't see anything, and if I had, I probably would have passed that on to those above me. Because I wouldn't have been able to bear it. Not because of them: They are terrorists and I have no pity for them. Because of us, because when we behave like that, it hurts us. We must think about ourselves, only about ourselves."
Dean Teplitsky assisted in compiling this investigative report.
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