An Israeli military doctor gave a horrific testimony about the conditions of sick Palestinian detainees in the Sde Teiman desert detention center.

Today, Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the testimony of a military doctor (whom it did not name) who previously served in “Sde Teiman”, in which he explained what is happening inside the prison against Palestinian detainees from Gaza.

“I arrived at the medical facility in Sde Timan during the (last) winter,” the doctor said. “In one of the recovery tents there were about 20 patients, all of them tied to old steel beds, like the ones used in our hospitals years ago. Everyone was conscious and blindfolded the whole time.”

"There were patients in different conditions. Some arrived very shortly after major surgery. Many had gunshot wounds, including a detainee who had been shot in his home in Gaza just a few hours earlier," he added.

“Every doctor knows that what such a person needs is a day or two in intensive care and then transferred to a ward; only there does the recovery actually begin. But the person was sent to a pen in Sde Teman after two hours of surgery in the hospital, they were saying that he could be released. I disagree with that. Patients like these in hospitals are in intensive care. It is absolutely clear,” he continued.

Several reports have previously spoken of killings, torture, sexual assaults and other violations against detainees in Sde Teiman, which the Israeli Supreme Court is considering a petition submitted by five Israeli human rights organizations demanding its immediate closure.

“There was another patient with a systemic infection – sepsis,” the doctor continued. “He was in critical condition, and even according to protocol, he wasn’t supposed to be there. Completely stable patients are supposed to be hospitalized in Sde Teman. But he was there and they said there was no alternative.”

He pointed out that "detaining a person without allowing him to move any of his limbs, blindfolded, naked, under treatment, in the middle of the desert... is ultimately nothing less than torture."

“There are ways to administer ill-treatment, or even torture, to someone without crushing cigarettes on them,” he said. “And to hold them like that, unable to see, move or speak, for a week, 10 days, a month… is nothing short of torture. Especially when there is clearly no medical reason. Why would you shackle the legs of someone who has had a stomach wound for two days? Aren’t hands enough?”

Asked if there was any interaction with the patients, he replied: “No, absolutely not. They are not allowed to speak, and the translators are only there to help when it comes to purely medical topics. They [the patients] don’t even know who I am, whether I am a soldier, or… they didn’t see me. Maybe they just heard and felt that someone had come to check on them, or something like that.”

“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t look them in the eye,” he added. “That’s not how I was taught to treat patients, no matter what they did. What was even more shocking was that when I was there, I have to admit… I wasn’t even sad. It all seemed surreal to me, a quarter of an hour’s drive from Beersheba.”

"Everything I've learned, all the years in university and hospitals, how to treat people - all that's there, but in an environment where 20 naked people are locked in a tent. It's something you can't imagine," he continued.

“Looking back, what’s most difficult for me is what I felt, or actually what I didn’t feel, when I was there,” he added. “It bothers me that it didn’t bother me, that I somehow looked at things but didn’t see them, or somehow… felt comfortable with them.”

He continued: "How did I not ask about the small details? Why do they cover themselves with blankets? Why are they anonymous? Why are we anonymous? How can they urinate and defecate in disposable diapers? Why do they give them straws to eat with... like, why?"

“I think it was already clear to me there that what was happening was not right, but not to what extent,” he added. “Maybe there is a process of habituation. You are among professionals, you speak Hebrew, and we were already used to seeing prisoners in chains in hospitals. So somehow… the process becomes normal there and at some point it simply stops bothering you.”

Recently, a report was issued by the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, "B'Tselem", which includes testimonies given by 55 Palestinian detainees after their release from Israeli occupation prisons, confirming that they were subjected to torture, sexual assault, humiliation and starvation.