The Fine Line Between Detention Centers and Torture Camps
CNN has released a surprisingly damning report on the treatment of detained Palestinians in an ostensible military detention center which seems to operate more along the lines of a black site, where men of all backgrounds are rounded up and caged like dogs at the in a kennel. Blindfolded. Brutalized. Handcuffed at the wrists and ankles to stretchers in a field hospital staffed with unqualified personnel while being forced to relieve themselves in diapers for days on end. These are some of the stories coming out of just one camp in Sde Teiman.
Before we continue it’s important to note CNN’s role in providing media cover for Israel throughout its genocide in Gaza. The network is among some of Israel’s most committed defenders, and their stance as a corporation which vehemently defends the Zionist project any other day of the week can help us understand the scope of the reported abuse. CNN’s report focuses on the Sde Teiman “detention” center just outside the Gaza Strip, but there are two other camps in the occupied West Bank, Anatot and Ofer, which one could reasonably assume would be breeding grounds for similar treatment. If CNN is talking about how bad it is at one camp, one could reasonably presume that means the situation is bad at all of the camps, with detainees being abused in all cases, however the situation at Sde Teiman is so bad it couldn’t be contained. This is most likely the last time we will see CNN discussing this story.
Abuse of Palestinian detainees is protocol. The Israeli government is the only one in the world that prosecutes children in military court. Administrative detention seems to be applied by default, to everyone. It’s not at all unheard of to hear stories of young Palestinian boys growing into men behind the walls of these Zionist dungeons. Some for throwing rocks. Some for yelling at their occupiers. Some for doing nothing at all. Quite a fine line between incarceration and being held hostage, don’t you think?
“He was stripped down to his underwear, blindfolded and his wrists tied, then dumped in the back of a truck where, he said, the near-naked detainees were piled on top of one another as they were shuttled to a detention camp in the middle of the desert.”
This is how CNN describes the moment Dr. Mohammed al-Ran, head of the surgical unit of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital, was detained by the IDF in the midst of their siege operation on the medical complex. The Indonesian hospital was among the first to be assaulted by Zionist forces and would be a grim indication of what would come to all of Gaza’s medical facilities, including it’s largest and by far its most crucial, al-Shifa. Dr. al-Ran was held for 44 days and fortunately survived and has since been released, but his detention was never warranted to begin with. Why are medical professionals being detained at all?
Dr. Adnan al-Bursh was the head of orthopedic medicine at al-Shifa hospital before he was disappeared in December. Last week he was reported to have been tortured to death in Israeli custody. His body has not been released to his family, which is hardly surprising. Israel has a policy of holding the bodies of those they imprison until they complete their sentences. Even though Dr. al-Bursh had not been sentenced for any crime, his body remains in custody while his family grieves. Where else in the world do they do this? Anywhere? Where else on Earth is it acceptable to disappear orthopedic physicians after destroying the institutions they served in? These are two men. Two stories. Who knows how many share similar experiences in silence as mainstream outlets like CNN turn a blind eye to their plight?
The CNN report focuses on the Sde Teiman camp and the experience of Dr. al-Ran however this story is anything but an isolated incident. It’s not hard to imagine that behind the walls of Anatot and Ofer the same abuse is taking place. In fact, media outlets like Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada, Al Mayadeen, Quds News Network, as well as countless others have been reporting on the abuse, detention, and, often enough, murder of Gaza’s medical workers for months. Again, this is hardly news for those who have been paying attention. Never mind the reality that Gazans don’t need to be blindfolded and kidnapped to a black site in the middle of the Sinai to feel the brunt of the Israeli boot. The Gaza Strip, with it’s towering cement walls and bird nests of armed guards preventing escape is in itself a prison, and abuse and degradation at the hands of their occupiers is an everyday part of life.
The report will help the average viewer understand the gravity of Israel’s crimes, but it’s hardly enough. It’s hardly anything at all. It may come off as a bombshell of enormous weight to the type of person who relies on legacy media such as CNN for their bulk intake of world events, but this is the type of story that has been coming out of Gaza since at least November of 2023. Perhaps we’d live in a more informed society where the Gaza genocide was spoken of in the past tense had CNN and its ilk been doing their jobs this whole time, rather than providing cover for the horrific actions of the so-called Israeli Defense Forces.
Dr. al-Ran told reporters he was cleared of any Hamas links a week into his detention but was held still as a Shawish — Arabic for “supervisor” — due to his proficiency in Hebrew. The role of a Shawish is to be a (forced) intermediary between the IDF and its captives. So forced labor and detention. Call that what you will.
Blindfolded and handcuffed to beds in a field hospital for days on end. Forced to defecate in diapers and sit in your own waste. Unqualified medical staff performing painful procedures without anesthesia and without proper equipment. Limbs amputated from being zip-tied for weeks on end. Flash bangs deployed as dogs are sic’d on a bunch of unsuspecting, sleeping men during midnight raids (men who had been stripped of everything they own and are under constant surveillance, I might add). These are the type of conditions innocent Palestinians are being held in as they’re allegedly being cleared of ties to “terrorist organizations.” Does this all sound necessary to you? They don’t even do this type of shit at Gitmo. This is medieval. This is Israel.
One whistleblower who worked at the Sde Teiman camp told CNN: “Just being there felt like being complicit in abuse.” Another, in a letter to Israel’s attorney general as well as its health and defense ministries, said: “I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law.”
As stated before, when something like this is reported in legacy media it should be viewed as a much larger issue than they are leading on. If CNN says the abuse of detainees in Israeli “detention” camps is a big problem, then it is in reality an astronomical problem. I refuse to give credit to hacks who carry water for empire any other day of the week, but there is value in this report and I’m glad it was released. Send a link to your liberal Zionist grandma.