The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has published a major new report documenting how the Israeli prison system has become “a network of torture camps,” where physical, psychological and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is normalized and routine.
The report, titled “Welcome to Hell,” collects the testimony of 55 Palestinians who were detained by Israeli authorities since October 7 and later released, almost all without charges. This comes as a group of U.N. experts condemned the widespread torture of Palestinians and as Israel’s Channel 12 News aired shocking footage of Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a prisoner at the Sde Teiman army base, where thousands of detainees from Gaza are held.
Sarit Michaeli, the international advocacy lead for B’Tselem, says the abuse in Israeli prisons is “systemic, ongoing and state-sanctioned,” reflecting the cruelty and thirst for revenge among a growing number of Israelis. “They would like to have a completely open field in terms of what they can do to Palestinians,” says Michaeli.
You can find the full report of testimonies here
Ethnic Cleansing is about displacement first and foremost, please read the definition before you try to argue against it. Population growth isn’t antithetical to ethnic cleansing. The poverty is deliberately caused by the occupation in the OPT. The link between poverty and population growth are well known. Hostility towards the new Zionist settlers only arose due to the expulsions.
The Concept of forcible transfer the native Palestinians population was central to Zionism since the 1880s when Palestine was chosen as the location. During the British Mandate, around a 100,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by land purchases (unlike previous land purchases, where peasants would normally continue working and living on the land). Ben-Gurion used Partition as a tactic to dissuade the British from considering a Bi-National Secular State, and instead create a causi-belli for the beginning of a Jewish ethnostate within Palestine. The Nakba, or Plan Dalet, was deliberately planned for over a year. That ethnic cleansing campaign is directly responsible for the Palestinian Occupied Territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The 1967 war was a deliberate tactic for Israel to take control of those areas and begin the never ending occupation, once those policies were practiced on the Palestinian population that remained in the Green Line after the Nakba.
Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.
1967 war: Haaretz, Forward
Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations practiced in the occupied territories after 1967
Take a break from arguing with strangers on the Internet about how it’s actually the Palestinians fault for being ethnically cleansed. If you’re genuinely interested in the history go read the works of historians, I’ve already referenced plenty.