‘They were laughing’: Israel’s use of rape and sexual abuse in prisons

Warning: This communicative contains descriptions of intersexual battle that immoderate readers whitethorn find disturbing.

Muhammad al-Bakri specifically remembers the day of his rape.

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It was April 10, 2024, during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, astatine the extremity of the beatified period of Ramadan. The Gaza civilian servant had been beaten, tortured, bound and forced to ungraded himself since his apprehension by Israeli soldiers a period earlier.

The soldiers and their defender dogs surrounded him that day. “There were six soldiers connected the close and six connected the left,” helium recalled. “They would inquire your name. If you said ‘Muhammad’, they would say, ‘No, accidental your sanction is b****.’”

Al-Bakri said helium was held with 7 different prisoners. They were each stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed.

“We were raped aft being stripped of our clothes,” helium said. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, ohio God’, but they were conscionable laughing and filming us.” Al-Bakri past echoed what respective rights agencies person besides reported – that guards besides utilized dogs during the intersexual maltreatment of prisoners. “The dogs were pursuing commands from the officers to [attack] us,” helium said.

“There was nary mercy. We stayed successful that authorities of intersexual maltreatment and beatings for astir 20 minutes to fractional an hour. Then they told america to get dressed and took america backmost to the prison.”

Al-Bakri is among aggregate erstwhile prisoners who person fixed elaborate testimonies to Al Jazeera for Bodies of Evidence: Israel’s Darkest Weapon, a documentary probe into what International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, the United Nations and its peculiar rapporteur connected the occupied territories, Francesca Albanese, accidental amounts to the wide and systematic usage of rape and intersexual torture by the Israeli service against Palestinians. Rights groups specified arsenic the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor person besides documented testimonies of prisoners recounting however Israeli soldiers utilized dogs to rape them.

(Bodies of evidence: Israel’s Darkest Weapon) 

Allegations of the intersexual maltreatment of Palestinians successful Israeli prisons are not caller – they day backmost decades. But launching its genocidal warfare connected Gaza pursuing the Hamas-led onslaught of October 2023, Israel appears to person accrued the usage of rape arsenic a limb of war, according to the Al Jazeera probe and assorted reports by the UN and starring rights groups.

A UN report published successful March 2025 recovered grounds of the “systematic” usage of sexual, reproductive and different forms of gender-based unit by Israel since October 7, 2023. In May, Israel was added to the UN “blacklist of intersexual unit successful struggle zones”. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Israeli rights radical B’Tselem and the PCHR person described the pervasive civilization of intersexual unit wrong Israeli forces, particularly among those charged with overseeing Palestinian prisoners. Many were arrested and held without complaint nether Israel’s strategy of administrative detention.

Mohammed Zaki al-Bakri [Al Jazeera]

No soldiers oregon guards person been convicted of intersexual maltreatment of Palestinians. Israel detained 10 information officers aft a video of the rape of a captive was leaked from the Sde Teiman detention campy successful the Negev godforsaken successful July 2024. But gangs of right-wing protesters, including legislators, attempted to tempest the installation wherever the guards were being held successful a bid to escaped them.

Last July, Israel dropped each charges against the guards. The pistillate serviceman who allegedly leaked the video of the attack, Major-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was subsequently arrested. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed her “crime” – sharing footage of the rape by Israeli soldiers – arsenic the “most terrible nationalist relations attack” connected the state since its founding.

Right-wing protesters astatine the Sde Teiman detention installation aft Israeli subject constabulary arrived arsenic portion of an probe into the suspected rape of a Palestinian detainee successful July 2024 [Jill Gralow/Reuters]

UN rapporteur Albanese said the volition down the intersexual maltreatment of Palestinian prisoners was clear: not simply to inflict pain, but to destruct the unfortunate and their consciousness of self-worth.

“There is thing deeper successful the consciousness that torture, particularly rape and different forms of intersexual torture, destroys the caput of the person, particularly successful the capableness to rebuild oregon bask his oregon her intimacy,” she told Al Jazeera, recounting interviews with 2 survivors of rape.

Asked successful the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, successful July 2024 whether it was ever morganatic to rape a prisoner, Hanoch Milwidsky, a subordinate of Netanyahu’s Likud party, shouted: “Yes.”

“If helium is simply a Nukhba [Hamas fighter], everything is morganatic to do, everything.”

Francesca Albanese [Al Jazeera]

Surviving genocide and rape

Casual labourer Job, which is however Al Jazeera has chosen to recognition him, ne'er thought determination was thing peculiarly noteworthy astir his life.

Like al-Bakri, Job thought helium was an mundane middle-aged household antheral from Gaza. Both placed their children’s aboriginal supra their own. Both prioritised their families’ information since Israel launched its genocidal warfare successful October 2023. Both had go accustomed to shepherding their families done the checkpoints, bombings and forced displacements that defined regular beingness successful the besieged enclave.

That changed erstwhile some were taken prisoner, tortured and repeatedly raped by Israeli soldiers and defender dogs.

As with al-Bakri, Job’s representation of his rape is arsenic clear. “Female soldiers entered my room,” helium told Al Jazeera. “They enactment robust handcuffs connected my hands down me. They untied the handcuffs from my legs and enactment connected much handcuffs. Then they stripped maine of my clothes.”

He was pinned to the crushed with boots connected his backmost and neck, portion the pistillate soldiers raped him utilizing artificial objects.

“The soldiers astir them were applauding and filming the scene. They were filming the rape scene.”

Job’s rape and intersexual torture continued, each portion being questioned for immoderate cognition of the Hamas-led onslaught of which helium knew nothing.

Job [Al Jazeera]

Rage

The onslaught of October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 radical were killed and astir 250 abducted, ruptured overmuch of Israeli nine and assumptions astir the narration with Palestinians successful the occupied territory.

Through endless loops connected rolling news, the trauma of the attacks echoed passim Israeli society, arsenic the governmental people sought to amplify the harm inflicted upon Israel that day.

Recalling the events of his capture, Job recalled being blindfolded, tortured, trampled upon and beaten, each the portion being questioned connected the events of October 7, contempt having nary transportation to what unfolded that day.

“They were telling us: ‘You cognize God and the Quranic verse, an oculus for an eye, a bony for a tooth. As you sow, truthful shall you reap,’” helium recalled. Israeli soldiers told him: “You entered our lands, the Israeli lands, and invaded them. You raped and you did this and you did that”.

Al-Bakri was fixed a fig for a sanction and described being beaten erstwhile helium attempted to place himself successful immoderate different way. “You are present arsenic a captive of war,” helium recalled being told. “You came present due to the fact that of the demolition you caused.”

In summation to rape, al-Bakri said, helium and different prisoners were attacked with dogs, and what helium described arsenic dependable bombs intended to origin disorientation.

“You had to slumber connected your stomach, hands tied and eyes blindfolded, portion they walked dogs implicit you and kicked you,” helium said.

Albanese told Al Jazeera that akin accounts of mistreatment and torture successful the aftermath of the October 7 onslaught are common. “Brutality has escalated to an unprecedented level,” she said. “It became vindictive.”

“Regular practices person been terrible beating, slapping, burning, breached bones, breached teeth, intersexual violence, and rape,” she said. “Sexual penetration done objects, some bodily and different objects, similar thing that is recurrent, is the usage of metallic rods, cutting metallic that mightiness beryllium knives, metallic detectors, bottles.”

One of the Palestinian men arrested and tortured for days by Israeli soldiers shows the fig helium was marked by, and his manus swollen from handcuffs [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Dehumanisation

Many of the Israeli soldiers accused of taking portion successful the torture, intersexual maltreatment and rape of Palestinian prisoners were raised successful societies described by observers wrong Israel arsenic having been conditioned to spot Palestinians arsenic someway undeserving of quality respect.

Organisations specified arsenic B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel person described however galore Israelis walk their full lives without ever encountering Palestinians, a radical destined by authorities argumentation to be abstracted acquisition systems.

Notions of Palestinians arsenic being someway extracurricular the class of a recognisable radical tally heavy successful Israeli governmental culture, said sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani. That reaches backmost from the contiguous to adjacent the British Mandate for Palestine, erstwhile officials described it arsenic a “land without a people” to the present, wherever they tin beryllium killed, raped and tortured with evident impunity.

“By depicting the full colonisation arsenic quality animals and terrorists, and invoking the conception of quality shields to warrant massacres, Israel has efficaciously painted a people connected the backmost of an full civilian colonisation arsenic such,” Albanese told Al Jazeera. “Even children portrayed arsenic terrorists successful the making picture an overwhelming fearfulness of imminent death.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog had nary contented with “unequivocally” blaming each Palestinians for the Hamas-led onslaught connected October 7, telling reporters: “It is an full federation retired determination that is responsible. It’s not existent [that] this rhetoric astir civilians not [being] aware, not involved. It’s perfectly not true.”

In the aftermath of the attack, erstwhile Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was warring what helium called “human animals” and ordered a “complete siege” connected the men, women and children there. Others, specified arsenic Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, person been accordant offenders, routinely referring to Palestinians arsenic terrorists oregon framing ample segments of Palestinian nine successful broadly transgression oregon extremist terms, peculiarly successful narration to Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“Dehumanising connection plays a cardinal relation successful enterprises similar a genocide oregon different forms of corporate punishment and abuse,” Albanese said, “because, successful bid to dainty the different arsenic a subhuman, you request to spot him oregon her arsenic a subhuman.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich person been accused of consistently deploying racist connection to dehumanise Palestinians [File: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP]

Impunity

Despite what analysts person described arsenic an established signifier of rape and intersexual maltreatment against Palestinians, Israel has yet to person ineligible censure from immoderate multinational assemblage oregon look sanctions for its actions successful Gaza oregon the occupied West Bank. Attempts by planetary bodies, including the UN’s bid to analyse the allegations of intersexual maltreatment successful January 2025, were actively blocked by Israel.

Specific abuses – from forced nudity and threats of rape to assaults targeting genitals – person go modular signifier for the Israeli forces, the UN has found, carried retired with explicit oregon implicit support from elder officials. Ben-Gvir, for instance, has decried investigations into the rape astatine Sde Teiman arsenic “shameful”, portion Defence Minister Israel Katz has described attempts to clasp soldiers accountable for rape arsenic a “blood libel”.

The torture of Palestinians has been glorified successful Israel, Albanese remarked. “You person had not lone Israeli officials and leaders boasting astir however severely Palestinians were treated … Settlers and citizens alike person been taken to detention centres to observe, to watch, oregon to adjacent [take part] successful the humiliation inflicted connected Palestinians.”

Triestino Mariniello, a prof astatine Liverpool John Moores University and portion of the ineligible squad representing Gaza’s victims astatine the ICC, pointed retired what helium described arsenic a “very important quality nether planetary transgression instrumentality betwixt isolated acts of intersexual unit and acts that are portion of a systematic signifier against civilians”.

“The erstwhile whitethorn represent warfare crimes. When the aforesaid acts are organised and widespread, they magnitude to crimes against humanity,” helium said.

“These crimes instrumentality spot successful authorities detention centres and subject detention centres. The information that perpetrators are not tried, prosecuted, oregon convicted shows an organization argumentation down their commission,” Mariniello added.

To beryllium sure, Palestinians proceed to resist, Albanese said. “The Palestinians are inactive warring not to beryllium erased, not to beryllium made extinct arsenic a radical with a capableness to find themselves.”

But successful the eyes of astir observers, Israel’s genocide successful Gaza is continuing successful defiance of the insubstantial ceasefire imposed upon Israel by United States President Donald Trump successful October 2025. Israel is pursuing the forcible displacement of Palestinians crossed the occupied West Bank astatine a accelerated pace, with immoderate absorption from the landowners and farmers to Israeli settlers and information forces typically met with violence, imprisonment, and often torture and rape.

“Surviving intersexual unit and torture successful general, and rape is brutal,” Albanese said. “Imagine erstwhile it’s done connected a large-scale systemically to a population. It means to destruct the radical arsenic such.”