Israel Escalates War on Palestinian Prisoners

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Lisa Hajjar's argues that Israel's treatment of Palestinian prisoners constitutes a form of warfare, marked by systematic repression, punitive policies, and human rights violations.

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Institution: University of California Santa Barbara

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Lisa Hajjar’s argues that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners constitutes a form of warfare, marked by systematic repression, punitive policies, and human rights violations.

Image courtesy of interviewee. October 8, 2024

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This video discusses Israel's long history of torture, primarily focusing on its use against Palestinians in occupied territories since 1967. It emphasizes that torture has been a key strategy for gathering information and maintaining control over Palestinians, with tortured statements being crucial for military prosecutions. The author highlights the role of human rights organizations in documenting and challenging these practices, noting that the right against torture is a universally recognized human right.

The discussion also touches on the shift in Israeli politics, particularly under the right-wing Netanyahu government, which has shown a blatant disregard for international law. The recent escalation of violence against Palestinian prisoners has intensified since the conflict began on October 7, leading to extreme forms of brutality that go beyond interrogation tactics.

Specific incidents of abuse, such as a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by Israeli soldiers, illustrate the severity of the situation. This video event sparked debates in Israel regarding the culpability of soldiers for their actions. This video concludes by mentioning the concept of universal jurisdiction, suggesting that perpetrators of torture can be held accountable internationally if they are not prosecuted in their own country, although such accountability is rarely realized for Israeli officials. Overall, it portrays a dire picture of human rights violations and systemic torture in Israeli prisons, raising questions about the implications for accountability and international law.

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Here are five key points extracted from the video:

1. **Reliance on Torture for Control**: The video discusses Israel's historical reliance on torture as a means to extract information from Palestinians in occupied territories. Torture is framed as an integral part of Israel's control strategies, with coerced statements used in military courts to justify arrests and imprisonment of Palestinians.

2. **Human Rights Organization's Role**: Human rights organizations, both local and international, have been crucial in documenting and challenging the practices of torture and abuse by Israeli authorities. The video emphasizes the universality of the right not to be tortured and its importance in framing the narrative around Israeli abuses.

3. **Escalation of Brutality**: Following the escalation of conflict with Hamas after October 7, the treatment of prisoners in Israeli custody worsened significantly, with reports of extreme violence and degradation becoming more common. This includes the dissemination of images of brutality by Israeli sources, which serves to terrorize the Palestinian population.

4. **Impunity and Legal Framework**: The video notes the near-perfect record of impunity for Israeli violations of international law, including torture. There is a lack of accountability as the Israeli government often fails to prosecute its agents for gross violations, leading to discussions about potential prosecution under international law mechanisms like the International Criminal Court or universal jurisdiction.

5. **Debate on Military Conduct**: A specific incident involving Israeli soldiers committing acts of sexual violence against a Palestinian prisoner exemplifies the eroded discourse on legal and ethical military conduct within Israeli society. This incident sparked public outrage and a contentious debate about accountability, showcasing the deteriorating moral landscape regarding treatment of prisoners.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video you that encapsulate the main points discussed regarding the use of torture and the broader implications of these actions:

1. **On the nature of Israeli torture:**
- "The idea of using violence and coercion on people in custody has been basically as old as the history of Israeli torture."

2. **Purpose of torture in Israeli strategy:**
- "One of the primary purposes that Israeli torture served was that once Palestinians were captured, it was part of Israel's control strategies: arrest, interrogate, prosecute, and imprison Palestinians."

3. **Credibility of tortured statements:**
- "Tortured statements were absolutely central to Israel's control strategies, regardless of their truth."

4. **Importance of human rights organizations:**
- "Human rights organizations have been absolutely essential to reporting on and challenging Israeli torture tactics."

5. **On the universality of the right against torture:**
- "The right not to be tortured is one of the most universal rights human beings have."

6. **Description of the current Israeli government:**
- "It's the most right-wing government Israel's ever had, with members like Ben Vi who are hostile to international law."

7. **Torture as a tool of terror:**
- "A form that I would call terroristic torture is when you torture some people to terrorize a broader society."

8. **Impact of government leadership on prisoners:**
- "When Ben DeVere took over and became in charge of the Israel Prison Services... his goal was to exacerbate the suffering of Palestinians."

9. **Conditions in military detention facilities:**
- "Most of the people held at state to men were those captured in Gaza and transferred there... people were being held incommunicado."

10. **Impunity in Israel:**
- "Israel has a near-perfect record of impunity... when the Israeli government does not investigate, prosecute, and punish its own state agents for these kinds of gross violations of international law."

11. **Issues with gang rape of prisoners:**
- "Nine soldiers took one of the prisoners to the side and gang raped him... it created a riot among other soldiers on the base."

12. **International accountability:**
- "Perpetrators of gross crimes can at least in principle be prosecuted... through this doctrine called universal jurisdiction."

These quotes summarize critical aspects of the discussion surrounding the use of torture in Israel, the implications for human rights, and the internal and external dynamics influencing these human rights abuses.

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We can compare, Israel's reliance on torture

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to many other contexts where, I mean, the sort

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of the early history

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or sort of the, a long history of Israeli torture was,

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you know, dealing with,

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enemies Palestinians in occupied territories.

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Um, you know, that where there's a need for information.

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So while torture doesn't actually work, the idea

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of a lit of using violence and coercion

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or people in custody has been basically as old

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as the occupation itself since 1967.

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The history of Israeli,

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and this is common in other contexts as well,

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where governments are fighting against sort

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of unconventional forces or,

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or their enemies are, you know, it's

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where the human intelligence is really the need.

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And so, for, for several decades, one of the primary

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purposes that Israeli torture served was that once

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Palestinians were captured,

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because part of Israel's control strategies,

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a real centerpiece of Israel control strategies was to

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arrest, interrogate, prosecute and imprison Palestinians.

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And so torture was heavily relied upon to elicit statements

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that then could be used,

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by prosecutors in the military courts

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because, you know, ultimately imprisonment was a major sort

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of means by which Israel had maintained its control.

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And so whether or not, what Palestinians said was true

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or not about whatever they were being accused of

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or charged with, the goal was

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to get Palestinians into prisons.

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And the means because Israel fancied itself a rule

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of law state, they would,

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they wouldn't just like throw people in prison without sort

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of some degree of process.

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Um, those, tortured, statements were

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absolutely central to Israel's control strategies.

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It's been human rights organizations have been absolutely

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essential to, reporting on

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and challenging Israeli torture tactics.

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And one could say something about, you know,

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human rights in the occupied territories,

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but also sort of on a global level in context

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where people are ruled by a state that is not theirs.

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That, and where they have no access to laws

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or institutions to defend their own rights.

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Human rights has been, you know, sort of, that's the,

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those are the places where human rights really emerged first

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in the 1970s and eighties.

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And that's true of Palestinians.

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And so both pa Palestinian human rights organizations, and

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after they were established Israeli human rights

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organizations have really made torture one of the key foci

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of their, work.

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And the reason for that is

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because, you know, many things are illegal, you know,

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the governments do, but torture

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and the right not to be tortured is one of the most,

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is probably the most universal right human beings have.

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And so it's the clarity of torture

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and the importance of its illegality

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that has really kept a strong focus on,

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Israel's abuses of Palestinians in custody.

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Denmar Ben Vere is the, minister of National Security.

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He's an extreme right-wing racist.

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He's the head of the, Jewish Power Party.

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Um, when Netanyahu formed this government,

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of which Ben Vi is an important, member, it,

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as many people accurately note,

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it's the most right wing government Israel's ever had.

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And that's saying quite a bit.

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Um, but you know, the kinds of people, Ben Vi and others,

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and I would say Netanyahu as well, really

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both don't care about international law

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and are hostile to international law.

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So Ben Geier is a, you know, sort of a Jewish supremacist.

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So for him, laws that, you know, would restrain the state,

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you know, in its behavior towards people is

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utterly irrelevant.

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And criticisms of Israel for violating laws is, you know,

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really, I mean, I think that that's something

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that really distinguishes this particular government from

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every other government in the pa every other, you know, sort

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of administration where there's ab there's not just

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disregard for laws, but hostility to those laws.

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After October 7th, you know, the beginning of,

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Israel's war on Gaza, the pri, the, the treatment

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of prisoners, those people in custody inside of Israel,

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and the numbers of them, you know, doubled, you know,

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in the following months basically was where we saw that,

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the, the war in Gaza was also being replicated

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inside prisons where prisoners were being beaten shot at,

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like unlike past, bu of tor of Israeli torture.

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This torture was not just interrogation, torture, trying

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to get people to say things,

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but it was extreme forms of brutality

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and degradation in interrogations and just, you know, a

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after interrogations, even as people were being, you know,

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held in, in, in various facilities,

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whether it's military detention facilities

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or the prisons in Israel

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and the occupied territories, one of the ways that we know

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how bad it is, you know, for Palestinians

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who have been taken into Israeli custody is

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because Israelis have been publishing images of, you know,

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sort of gleeful celebratory images of their brutality

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and degradation of Palestinians in their,

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in their custody.

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And, because I would just note

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that Palestinians themselves in custody have been almost

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completely, isolated from any ability to communicate

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with the outside world.

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And so, you know, there's set,

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when we think about the different reasons why different

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governments or different pe entities utilize torture,

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and the one, that we would call a, a form

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that I would call terroristic torture is when you

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torture some people

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In order to terrorize a broader society.

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So I think that's one of the purposes

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for disseminating these kinds of, IM, you know,

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that when Israeli sourced images are, you know, disseminated

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by Israelis themselves, reveling in what they are doing,

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it's a means of both showing, you know, like making clear

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that they have a license

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for unfettered violence in this period,

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and that Palestinians can be subjected to any

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and all forms of violence that this is just happening.

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And so it's a kind of, it terrorizes people on top

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of what's happening to those in Gaza now in

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the West Bank as well.

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When Ben DeVere took over

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and became, in charge

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of the Israel Prison Services his in 2022, his, you know,

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goal was to exacerbate the suffering

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of Palestinians whom he called just, you know,

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across the board terrorists in, in his custody.

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And so that kind of license to perpetrate violence

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compounded by Israeli, you know, desires

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for vengeance in retaliation for,

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the Hamas attacks on October 7th just

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left Palestinians in custody.

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And when people are in custody, that's when you're in your

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most vulnerable, they left them completely vulnerable

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to all kinds of violence abuse.

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But one of the things that, has kind of had a,

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an impact in recent years, starting in May, 2024, was,

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indications of abuse coming out of one

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of the Israeli,

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military detention facilities called statesmen.

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So statesmen is a military base, and

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after the war started, part of it was repurposed to, for,

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as a military detention facility,

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and the people, most of the people held at s Demen were

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people captured in Gaza and transferred there.

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And so Israel had also, you know, has had, you know, prior

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to this, you know, since 2002, a law on the books,

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an unlawful combatants law

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copying the US unlawful combatants law that people

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who are suspected of being enemies

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of the state could just be held incommunicado.

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So people at state to men were being held incommunicado.

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There wasn't really any information

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about what was happening.

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And the first break in that, you know,

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secrecy was when a doctor working at state hemen,

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sent a letter to various cabinet ministers telling them

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that the abuses going on in that prison, you know, to

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Palestinian prisoners in the clinics, for example,

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where he worked, you know, were absolutely illegal.

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And so that then sparked, some investigations, into

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what was going on in statesmen.

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Um, and one of which was a big CNN investigation

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where several whistle blowing soldiers

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and a number of Palestinians released from state men.

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So there was already, by the summer, a sense that,

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you know, the horrors of

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what was happening in state men were eliciting international

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attention in, in ways.

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You know, and I, this comes back to the point of

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how important torture is.

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The kind of criticism of the Israeli government

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around issues of torture

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and abuse of prisoners was, you know, the only issue that,

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you know, many of its allies have even complained about,

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even as g as genocide

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and other, you know, war crimes are,

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are being perpetrated.

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So the but what, what happened, a real sort of big issue,

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was that, nine soldiers took one of the,

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prisoners, from Gaza in statesmen, you know, off

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to the side and gang raped him,

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and he was so severely, injured, you know,

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that he had to actually be transported to, an

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outside hospital for treatment.

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And that there, that gang rape was actually captured

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on surveillance video.

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So despite the fact that there was abundant evidence

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of all kinds of torture, you know, murder of, you know,

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Palestinians in prisons, et cetera, it was

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that particular event that inspired,

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the military advocate general to bring charge,

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to do investigation of those soldiers for gang rape.

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And then when they set the military police in to the base

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to say, state, to, to arrest the nine soldiers, you know,

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it created a riot.

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You know, the other soldiers on the base offended them.

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And, you know, 200 Israelis rushed to the base,

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including members of the Knesset to defend the soldiers.

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And so in the, in the subsequent, you know,

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weeks since then,

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there's been a debate in Israel about whether

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or not Israeli soldiers should have a right

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to rape Palestinian prisoners.

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I mean, this is where this, you know,

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degraded discourse has, has come, you know,

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and so it's, I think it's really one of the real

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breaking points of the, of a consensus in Israeli society.

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The Israel, you know, one thing

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that we mentioned in our article is

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that Israel has a near perfect record of impunity,

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and I would say the United States has the same near record,

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perfect record of imp in fact,

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even better record of impunity for torture.

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But so when is, when the Israeli government does not

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investigate, prosecute

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and punish its own state agents for these kinds

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of gross violations of international law, including torture,

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torture, and several other gross crimes, genocide,

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war crimes and crimes against humanity are subject

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to prosecution in other venues.

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You know, so for example, the international criminal court,

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you know, although Israel's not a signatory,

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Palestine is, you know, Palestine is, you know, sort

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of a party to the Rome, treaty.

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So there is that question of whether possibly, you know,

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Israelis, who can be plausibly accused of,

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torture may be prosecuted there,

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but for geopolitical reasons, that's highly unlikely.

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But the other means by which, you know, perpetrators

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of gross crimes can at least in principle be prosecuted

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If they're not prosecuted in their own country, is

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through this doctrine called universal jurisdiction.

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And this doctrine sort of developed in the,

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contemporary era, in connection with the efforts

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to prosecute former chi

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and now late Chilean dictator August Pinochet.

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And what universal jurisdiction means is

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that any government in the world has an interest in holding

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the enemies of all mankind responsible if they're not being

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held responsible elsewhere.

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And, and people, torturers are considered enemies

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of all mankind because of the importance of the right not

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to be tortured.

Israel's Systematic Use of Torture Against Palestinians

00:00:00 - We can compare, Israel's reliance on torture to many other contexts where, I mean, the sort of the early history or sort of the, a long history of Israeli torture was, you know, dealing with, enemies Palestinians in occupied territories. you know, that where there's a need for information. So while torture doesn't actually work, the idea of a lit of using violence and coercion or people in custody has been basically as old

00:00:34 - The history of Israeli, and this is common in other contexts as well, where governments are fighting against sort of unconventional forces or, or their enemies are, you know, it's where the human intelligence is really the need. And so, for, for several decades, one of the primary purposes that Israeli torture served was that once Palestinians were captured, because part of Israel's control strategies,

00:01:05 - arrest, interrogate, prosecute and imprison Palestinians. And so torture was heavily relied upon to elicit statements that then could be used, by prosecutors in the military courts because, you know, ultimately imprisonment was a major sort of means by which Israel had maintained its control. And so whether or not, what Palestinians said was true or not about whatever they were being accused of

Israeli Torture Tactics and Human Rights Challenges

00:01:34 - to get Palestinians into prisons. And the means because Israel fancied itself a rule of law state, they would, they wouldn't just like throw people in prison without sort of some degree of process. those, tortured, statements were absolutely central to Israel's control strategies. It's been human rights organizations have been absolutely essential to, reporting on and challenging Israeli torture tactics. And one could say something about, you know,

00:02:06 - but also sort of on a global level in context where people are ruled by a state that is not theirs. That, and where they have no access to laws or institutions to defend their own rights. Human rights has been, you know, sort of, that's the, those are the places where human rights really emerged first in the 1970s and eighties. And that's true of Palestinians. And so both pa Palestinian human rights organizations, and after they were established Israeli human rights

00:02:40 - of their, work. And the reason for that is because, you know, many things are illegal, you know, the governments do, but torture and the right not to be tortured is one of the most, is probably the most universal right human beings have. And so it's the clarity of torture and the importance of its illegality that has really kept a strong focus on, Israel's abuses of Palestinians in custody.

Hostility to Law: The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in Israel

00:03:09 - He's an extreme right-wing racist. He's the head of the, Jewish Power Party. when Netanyahu formed this government, of which Ben Vi is an important, member, it, as many people accurately note, it's the most right wing government Israel's ever had. And that's saying quite a bit. but you know, the kinds of people, Ben Vi and others, and I would say Netanyahu as well, really

00:03:40 - and are hostile to international law. So Ben Geier is a, you know, sort of a Jewish supremacist. So for him, laws that, you know, would restrain the state, you know, in its behavior towards people is utterly irrelevant. And criticisms of Israel for violating laws is, you know, really, I mean, I think that that's something that really distinguishes this particular government from every other government in the pa every other, you know, sort

00:04:12 - disregard for laws, but hostility to those laws. After October 7th, you know, the beginning of, Israel's war on Gaza, the pri, the, the treatment of prisoners, those people in custody inside of Israel, and the numbers of them, you know, doubled, you know, in the following months basically was where we saw that, the, the war in Gaza was also being replicated inside prisons where prisoners were being beaten shot at,

Brutality and Dehumanization in Israeli Prisons

00:04:45 - This torture was not just interrogation, torture, trying to get people to say things, but it was extreme forms of brutality and degradation in interrogations and just, you know, a after interrogations, even as people were being, you know, held in, in, in various facilities, whether it's military detention facilities or the prisons in Israel and the occupied territories, one of the ways that we know

00:05:15 - who have been taken into Israeli custody is because Israelis have been publishing images of, you know, sort of gleeful celebratory images of their brutality and degradation of Palestinians in their, in their custody. And, because I would just note that Palestinians themselves in custody have been almost completely, isolated from any ability to communicate with the outside world. And so, you know, there's set,

00:05:45 - governments or different pe entities utilize torture, and the one, that we would call a, a form that I would call terroristic torture is when you torture some people In order to terrorize a broader society. So I think that's one of the purposes for disseminating these kinds of, IM, you know, that when Israeli sourced images are, you know, disseminated by Israelis themselves, reveling in what they are doing, it's a means of both showing, you know, like making clear

Exacerbation of Violence Against Palestinians in Custody

00:06:17 - for unfettered violence in this period, and that Palestinians can be subjected to any and all forms of violence that this is just happening. And so it's a kind of, it terrorizes people on top of what's happening to those in Gaza now in the West Bank as well. When Ben DeVere took over and became, in charge of the Israel Prison Services his in 2022, his, you know, goal was to exacerbate the suffering of Palestinians whom he called just, you know,

00:06:49 - And so that kind of license to perpetrate violence compounded by Israeli, you know, desires for vengeance in retaliation for, the Hamas attacks on October 7th just left Palestinians in custody. And when people are in custody, that's when you're in your most vulnerable, they left them completely vulnerable to all kinds of violence abuse. But one of the things that, has kind of had a,

00:07:22 - indications of abuse coming out of one of the Israeli, military detention facilities called statesmen. So statesmen is a military base, and after the war started, part of it was repurposed to, for, as a military detention facility, and the people, most of the people held at s Demen were people captured in Gaza and transferred there. And so Israel had also, you know, has had, you know, prior

Unlawful Detention and Whistleblowing in Israeli Prisons

00:07:52 - an unlawful combatants law copying the US unlawful combatants law that people who are suspected of being enemies of the state could just be held incommunicado. So people at state to men were being held incommunicado. There wasn't really any information about what was happening. And the first break in that, you know, secrecy was when a doctor working at state hemen, sent a letter to various cabinet ministers telling them

00:08:24 - Palestinian prisoners in the clinics, for example, where he worked, you know, were absolutely illegal. And so that then sparked, some investigations, into what was going on in statesmen. and one of which was a big CNN investigation where several whistle blowing soldiers and a number of Palestinians released from state men. So there was already, by the summer, a sense that, you know, the horrors of

00:08:54 - attention in, in ways. You know, and I, this comes back to the point of how important torture is. The kind of criticism of the Israeli government around issues of torture and abuse of prisoners was, you know, the only issue that, you know, many of its allies have even complained about, even as g as genocide and other, you know, war crimes are, are being perpetrated. So the but what, what happened, a real sort of big issue, was that, nine soldiers took one of the,

Impunity and Dehumanization in Israeli Prisons

00:09:29 - to the side and gang raped him, and he was so severely, injured, you know, that he had to actually be transported to, an outside hospital for treatment. And that there, that gang rape was actually captured on surveillance video. So despite the fact that there was abundant evidence of all kinds of torture, you know, murder of, you know, Palestinians in prisons, et cetera, it was

00:10:00 - the military advocate general to bring charge, to do investigation of those soldiers for gang rape. And then when they set the military police in to the base to say, state, to, to arrest the nine soldiers, you know, it created a riot. You know, the other soldiers on the base offended them. And, you know, 200 Israelis rushed to the base, including members of the Knesset to defend the soldiers. And so in the, in the subsequent, you know,

00:10:27 - there's been a debate in Israel about whether or not Israeli soldiers should have a right to rape Palestinian prisoners. I mean, this is where this, you know, degraded discourse has, has come, you know, and so it's, I think it's really one of the real breaking points of the, of a consensus in Israeli society. The Israel, you know, one thing that we mentioned in our article is that Israel has a near perfect record of impunity, and I would say the United States has the same near record,

Impunity and Universal Jurisdiction in Torture Prosecutions

00:10:58 - even better record of impunity for torture. But so when is, when the Israeli government does not investigate, prosecute and punish its own state agents for these kinds of gross violations of international law, including torture, torture, and several other gross crimes, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are subject to prosecution in other venues. You know, so for example, the international criminal court, you know, although Israel's not a signatory,

00:11:30 - of a party to the Rome, treaty. So there is that question of whether possibly, you know, Israelis, who can be plausibly accused of, torture may be prosecuted there, but for geopolitical reasons, that's highly unlikely. But the other means by which, you know, perpetrators of gross crimes can at least in principle be prosecuted If they're not prosecuted in their own country, is through this doctrine called universal jurisdiction.

00:12:26 - contemporary era, in connection with the efforts to prosecute former chi and now late Chilean dictator August Pinochet. And what universal jurisdiction means is that any government in the world has an interest in holding the enemies of all mankind responsible if they're not being held responsible elsewhere. And, and people, torturers are considered enemies of all mankind because of the importance of the right not to be tortured.

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Israel Escalates War on Palestinian Prisoners

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