New Delhi: The deep fissures in Israeli society came out in the open this week when a mob of lawmakers and far right groups stormed an Israeli base where soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner are being held pending their trial
Some Israelis have called it one of their most distressing days, while right-wing Israeli lawmakers, including those from the ruling Likud, have justified the rape of Hamas prisoners, claiming it is legitimate due to the atrocities committed during the October 7 attacks, which Israel says resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths:
“A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, speaking Monday at a meeting of lawmakers, justified the rape and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, shouting angrily at colleagues questioning the alleged behavior that anything was legitimate to do to “terrorists” in custody.
Lawmaker Hanoch Milwidsky was asked as he defended the alleged abuse whether it was legitimate, “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum?”
“Yes!” he shouted in reply to his fellow parliamentarian. “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
The disagreement escalated dramatically on Monday when military police officers detained nine soldiers at Sde Teiman on suspicion of raping a Palestinian detainee and subsequently transferred them to Beit Lid, another military base.
The arrests came against the wider backdrop of the International Criminal Court considering a request by its prosecutor for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to be prosecuted for war crimes.
Here’s an overview of the events during Israel’s day of chaos.
What happened?
On July 29, Israeli military police detained at least nine military reservists at Sde Teiman military base, which had been the focus of several leaked investigations for its treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
According to reports, the Israeli military has said that the soldiers are being questioned as part of a probe into “suspected substantial sexual abuse of a detainee”. A lawyer, Nati Rom, representing three of the soldiers had told media that the charges were for committing “acts of sodomy”. He also claimed that the prisoner was a high-ranking Hamas militant.
As per Associated Press, the lawyer Rom works for Honenu, a nationalist legal group that specializes in defending Israeli soldiers and civilians facing prosecution over incidents of violence with Palestinians.
Several Israeli media outlets reported that the prisoner had been hospitalized with a serious injury to his intimate parts. Haaretz reported that he had “ruptured bowel, a severe injury to his anus, lung damage and broken ribs”.
“If the state and Knesset members think there’s no limit to how much you can abuse prisoners, they should kill them themselves, like the Nazis did, or close the hospitals,” Yoel Donchin, a doctor who treated the Palestinian prisoner, told the Israeli media outlet.
Haaretz reported that the confrontation escalated between military police personnel and soldiers who refused to evacuate and barricaded themselves inside the facility. According to security sources, some soldiers reportedly used pepper spray against the military personnel who arrived to detain the suspects.
As news of the soldiers’ questioning spread, a large group of around 200 protesters, including at least three Knesset lawmakers, gathered outside in protest against the detention and eventually broke into the base.
The masked protesters shouted, “We will not abandon our friends, certainly not for terrorists.”
The prominent politicians in the crowd, included Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, Otzma Yehudit MK and MK Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism, member of the ruling coalition.
The Times of Israel noted that Sukkot says in a video that “we cannot investigate the soldiers until we investigate those who failed” to prevent October 7.
He is also filmed leading a group of protestors to the gate of the base and forcing his way through. On reaching the detention centre within the base, videos show the protestors attempting to break down the gates.
It was only then that the police arrived at the base, who then push the protestors outside the base.
The protestors then moved later on Monday night to a second base, Beit Lid, where the detained soldiers were being held. It houses offices of the military court and military police. The Times of Israel reported that some of the protestors at Beit Lid, seemed to be armed and wore IDF uniforms.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military indicted a reservist posted at Sde Teiman base in a separate case for using “severe violence against the detainees he was entrusted with guarding”.
What is the Sde Teiman military base?
Sde Teiman is an Israeli military base located in the Negev desert. Since the start of Israel’s military invasion of Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, the base has also been used as a detention centre.
Satellite images analysed by CNN revealed significant changes at the base after October 7, including the addition of more than 100 new structures, such as tents and hangars, and an increase in the number of vehicles
There have been multiple investigations, from media outlets like CNN, The New York Times, Associated Press, BBC and Haaretz, which have thrown up concerns about serious human rights violations against Palestinian prisoners.
The IDF had announced a probe into the allegations of sexual abuse at Sde Teiman, as well as two other military detention camps at Anatot and Ofer.
Based on these media investigations, Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) had filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice to close the detention centre at the Sde Teiman military base in May.
At the first hearing, the Israeli government had said that it was phasing out the detention centre at Sde Teiman by transferring Palestinian prisoners to other military facilities.
What has been the official and political reaction?
The Israeli Defense Forces stated, according to Israeli media, that the storming of the two bases was directly compromising Israel’s security as it had caused a “major distraction” from retaliatory actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Top IDF officers, including Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, halted discussions on the retaliation to address the base infiltrations. Halevi also visited the Beit Lid base, reported the Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, additional soldiers were deployed from the West Bank and recalled from vacation to the Beit Lid base.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly condemned” the storming of the bases, while Israeli president Isaac Herzog claimed that the “morality of the IDF and its soldiers have always been our pride”.
“Let us not forget that our enemies try to go after us again and again, also in the international legal arena … It is forbidden in any way to give them grounds [to go after] the IDF and the State of Israel,” he said.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that while he was in “full appreciation for the soldiers who carry out the complex and important task of imprisoning Hamas terrorists,”, the law will apply to everyone, “even if angry”.
He also demanded an investigation into whether far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had “prevented or delayed the police response” to the riots.
The Jerusalem Post, citing sources, stated that the police was furious with the military for “not adequately inform(ing) them about the scale of the incident”.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid claimed that the storming of the bases was “an attempted coup by an armed militia against a weak prime minister who is unable to control his government.”
“A dangerous fascist group threatens the existence of the State of Israel. They are the best thing that happened to [Gaza ruler Yahya] Sinwar and [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah. If we don’t stand up to them, the country will fall apart. If Netanyahu does not fire the ministers who participated in these violent raids today, he is not fit to represent the State of Israel,” Lapid said in a statement.
Meanwhile, several members of the ruling coalition criticized the arrest of the nine soldiers.
“I recommend the defense minister, the IDF chief, and the military authorities to back the fighters and learn from the prison service – light treatment of terrorists is over. Soldiers need to have our full support,” said Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see harsh pictures of soldiers being arrested.”
“The excessive motivation to act against IDF fighters raises difficult questions. It seems that the wheels of justice at the military advocate’s office are turning in the opposite direction,” stated Economy Minister Nir Barkat. “They are justified, and I support them with all my heart,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a statement, but adding that his supporters should not to break into IDF bases or engage in scuffles with soldiers and police officers.
Far-right parliamentarian Limor Son Har-Melech posted a video on X showing her addressing the detained soldiers at Sde Teiman and referring to the “criminal military advocate.”
The far-right lawmakers who stormed the bases also posted videos of interviews with masked members of Force 100, the unit to which the detained soldiers at Sde Teiman belonged.
Palestinian reaction
There was demand from some Palestinian officials for an international probe for probing the allege crimes against Palestinian detainees.
Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the IDF was trying protect itself from the International Criminal Court by conducting a formal investigation, but even that does not please “Israeli fascists”.
Qadura Fares, a former minister who heads the Palestinian Prisoners Club, called for the establishment of a UN investigation committee to scrutinize the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, especially at Sde Teiman, as well as other facilities where sexual assaults are alleged. He dismissed the arrests of several soldiers by the Israeli military police as a “farce” designed to deceive international public opinion.
What do the Israeli observers say?
One of the reporters covering the riots at the base, Ynet News’s Ilana Curiel, narrated her harrowing experience, when the mob turned upon her.
“Traitor. Wh*re. Go back to Gaza. Hamas. These are just some of the insults hurled at me and other journalists who came to cover the protest at the entrance to the IDF detention center at Sde Teiman. This doesn’t include the spitting, additional colourful curses, and shoving that took place,” she wrote.
Ilana Curiel stated that she wasn’t afraid on October 7, and neither had she cried while reporting on the aftermath of the Hamas attack. But, she was afraid of protestors at Sde Teiman. “The feeling that I was afraid of Israelis, of people who are supposed to be my neighbors, of people who are part of my nation. You’re supposed to be the ones I expect to stand by my side. We’re supposed to be together in all this, right?
Amid growing concerns about the unchecked rise of the far-right in Israel under the Netanyahu government’s reliance on extremist parties, Haaretz columnist Chaim Levinson referred to the incident as an “Altalena moment.” This refers to the 1948 IDF attack on the ship Altalena, which was carrying weapons for a Jewish paramilitary group, resulting in 19 deaths.
“Are there militias with political affiliations here doing whatever they want, or is there a central authority subject to the law and chain of command?” he posted. Levinson noted that the Altalena battle was decided in favor of the state, but the conflict over Sde Teiman will be decided in favor of the far right. “The authority of the army will be dismantled,” he added.
The lead editorial in Haaretz on July 31 noted that the far right poses a threat to ordinary Israelis.
“The mob that broke into two IDF bases, accompanied by MKs from the governing coalition, is another red line that has been crossed. The far right is ratcheting up a notch. If the authorities don’t come down hard on the protesters – including the MKs and ministers who supported them – then what happened on Monday will enter the far-right’s repertoire of political violence. If the state doesn’t employ the full force of the law against them, they will become a real threat to ordinary Israelis, judges, opposition MKs, army officers, journalists and anyone else they mark as targets,” noted the Haaretz editorial.
In a tweet, Ben-Ephraim said that the Israeli government had been lying so far when it had dismissed allegations of torture as ‘propaganda’ and has only acted now “because the pressure from the UK, ICC and ICJ was getting too great to ignore”:
I feel stupid and ashamed. In May, an expose came out on CNN detailing the abuses in Sde Taiman. Then, the NYT released their own article on it. Both were backed up with Israeli sources, crossed with Palestinian ones. I dismissed them because my government sources and Israeli media denied them. My whole life I was told that the international media was out to get Israel. That they were all antisemites.
But today, I realized how much I was lied to. By my country. By my friends. By my media. Today, many of the people I talked to who denied these allegations admitted they were true.
And the worst part? None of this is coming to light because the IDF and government have changed their hearts about it. Its coming out because the pressure from the UK, ICC and ICJ was getting too great to ignore. This would get Netanyahu, Gallant and the Chief of Staff in serious trouble. So they finally said the truth. That Israel is routinely torturing inmates. That sexual abuse is fairly common there. That people have been tortured to death.
Worst of all, many of the people in this facility were innocent. Rounded up by accident. But there was no real verification process before they were subjected to this hell on earth. This can’t go on.”