‘Tortured’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN

Heart-wrenching testimonies from Palestinian victims of alleged torture and sexual abuse at the hands of Israeli authorities were presented at the United Nations. Among those sharing their harrowing experiences was 28-year-old nurse Said Abdel Fattah, who was detained near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital in November 2023. “I was humiliated and tortured,” he said, recounting his ordeal through a video link from Gaza.

Dismissing the testimonies as a mere distraction, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, claimed that the country diligently investigates and prosecutes any wrongdoing by its forces. Fattah, however, painted a starkly different picture.

He described being stripped naked in the cold and enduring relentless beatings, threats of sexual violence, and other abuses during his two-month detention in overcrowded facilities.

“I was like a punching bag,” he recalled, referring to a particularly brutal interrogation session in January 2024.

His interrogator allegedly subjected him to severe genital abuse, leaving Fattah bleeding profusely and feeling as if his very essence had left his body.

Fattah spoke during the latest in a series of public hearings held by the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, focusing specifically on disturbing allegations of “sexual and reproductive violence” perpetrated by Israeli security forces and settlers.

COI member Chris Sidoti emphasised the importance of hearing the victims’ voices, stating that their experiences deserved to be acknowledged.

Experts and advocates who testified on Tuesday outlined a “systematic” pattern of sexual violence against Palestinians not only in detention facilities but also at checkpoints and other locations, exacerbated by the chaos following Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023.

Meron condemned the hearings, equating allegations against individual Israelis with the “shocking” sexual violence inflicted by Hamas on Israeli hostages, calling any such comparison “reprehensible.”

Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis rejected Meron’s claims, decrying the glaring absence of accountability.

She argued that abuse had evolved into “a widespread policy,” highlighting that all those detained from Gaza faced strip searches, with reports of soldiers “pushing sticks” into prisoners’ anuses.

According to Francis, sexual abuse was alarmingly pervasive, particularly during the early months of the conflict.

The grave allegations extend beyond detention facilities. Mohamed Matar, a resident of the West Bank, testified to enduring hours of horrifying torture by security agents and settlers while Israeli police remained idle.

Shortly after the October 7 attack, Matar and fellow activists attempted to protect a Bedouin community from settler violence.

Upon exiting the area, they were pursued and captured by a group of settlers and members of Israel’s Shabak security agency.

Matar recounted being blindfolded, stripped to his underwear, and bound before being taken to a nearby stable, where the leader of the group ordered him to eat sheep feces.

Over the course of nearly 12 hours of abuse, he was brutally beaten and humiliated, to the extent that he begged, “just shoot me in the head.”

He described one assailant’s attempts to insert a stick into his anus while dozens of settlers watched, documenting the scene.

Displaying photographs of the aftermath of the abuse, Matar showed significant bruising on his body, a testament to the brutality inflicted upon him.

After his testimony, he expressed the lasting psychological impact of the ordeal, stating, “I didn’t think there were people on Earth with such a level of ugliness, sadism, and cruelty.”

Source: ALARABYA News