It has been bothering me for over a month…. The words of Trump – that the Palestinians holding the hostages in tunnels were inhuman “ not a word – no humanity, nothing. There was no warmth, a little word of encouragement. A lot of bad things . Hamas have said they are going to use the hostages as bait.” Vaclav Havel, the Czech president put it best, it was a concept of performance politics…. at best, where “political figures engage in performative acts to communicate, manipulate and project a desired image.”
The desired image by Hamas and Israeli prison guards is one that lacks humanity, words, voices or even care. The Hamas guards guarding the prisoners in the tunnels are strictly forbidden to communicate in any way, they do not have a face, they have one argument and that is to hold the prisoners and keep them alive. Trump is right that there is very little humanity, but the ability to communicate would make their objective in holding the prisoners that much harder if there were any interaction between the guard and the prisoner.
B’tselem, a human rights group in Israel details what Gazan’s, Palestinians from the West Bank and Israeli Arabs went through as prisoners after October 7. Prison guards following the orders of Ben Gvir the Minister of public security were out of control and expected to be so by the authorities. In this harrowing report, which if the US intelligence services are up to snuff would have been reported to both President Biden and President Trump, B’tselem detail the everyday suffering of those taken by the Israeli authorities after the atrocities of 7th October.
It is not so much that the Israeli military were fighting a war that differentiated from civilian or combatant and it was not so much that Hamas held the moral upper hand, it is a case of two sides trying to convey an image to the outside world that is neither believed or could be upheld in a court of law. The savagery of both sides challenges the argument of how entities are fighting this war, but it is also a story that has been ongoing for the past seventy years.
Both Netanyahu and Sinwar, manipulated outcomes at the start of the war to rile up voices that couldn’t be stopped from brutal argument. Netanyahu, is a weak man, any commander who calls for destruction of an entire race, is weak, not thinking and manipulating a war that could have been managed. The failure of Netanyahu is that – not once- has he taken responsibility for the failings of politicians, ministers or the argument that the budget of his government constrained the Israeli military response to the attacks by Hamas.
But it is the language of annihilation that speaks volumes. The voices that have stepped up and threatened to write and tell all on the Israeli side-is being negated by voices that instil hatred. The fact that the Gazan’s didn’t have anything to feed the hostages, can also be cross referenced by Ben Gvir ordering the prisons not to provide a controlled diet to the prisoners in Israeli prisons. One of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, argued that she was treated inhumanely, “ not a word was said, not a voice nothing, we were treated so badly.”
But put into context, prisoner ZH from East Jerusalem reported that the prison guards would take everyone out of the cells in handcuffs: “they would beat and kick everyone; they would search the cell, […] three counts a day and a search [every]day, would lead to more beating.
This is not so bad, but it counters what the Jewish hostage in Gaza argued – ‘that there was no humanity.’ However B’tselem reports the degradation of the prisoners, the Gazan’s whether combatants or not, were subjected to the worst behaviour by the prison guards. There are widespread reports of torture, rape, beatings that ended lives and prisoners inserted with probes anally that sent electric shocks through the prisoner until they passed out. Prisoners were put into stress positions and beaten where they lost consciousness and in some cases were refused medical treatment – other than one paracetamol a day for the injuries caused by the beatings and stress positions. There are reports that guards both female and male would stuff things into the back passage of inmates and those that reported their treatment by the prison guards to their lawyer were further beaten and degraded.
There was no legal protection, judges didn’t uphold the prisoners human rights and under testimony prisoners complaints were ignored. Mohammed Srur’s testimony was taken by B’tselm…. He reported that “they took me and another detainee to a room where they sat us in front of a computer to participate in a live court hearing. [….] During the hearing, I […} spoke about how we were brutally attacked and abused by the guards during transfer,but the judge didn’t pay any attention. [..] After the hearing, on the way to the cell, the IPS people took revenge on me for complaining. They hit and kicked me.”
Accounts of wide scale torture, beatings with sticks, iron rods or pepper spraying prisoners is not uncommon by the IPS, but there are accounts of torturing to such a degree that lives were lost or that when the prisoner leaves the prison – is infirm or degraded to such an extent that they are disabled for the rest of their lives.
Degradation is a tool, which the Israeli security services used. It is not one that Hamas have been reported to have used – other than in the initial stages of the October attack. The out of control Israeli prison system, systematically tore Human Rights law into pieces. The soldiers who were prosecuted were supported by politicians who challenged those degrading the dignity of the prisoners either through rape or being caught on camera raping prisoners, which was challenged by the authorities.
The ultra right demonstrated at the army base where the soldiers were arrested and politicians challenged the arrests. A member of the knesset Hanoch Milwidsky was asked whether it is legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum.” He answered “YES! If he is nukhba (Hamas militant), everything is legitimate to do!” The finance minister Smotrech, felt that the crime itself was recording the video, rather than the alleged rape itself. On Twitter, he demanded “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leaker of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir argued that with Israel any action – even gang rape – is permissible if it is undertaken for the security of the state. He went on to argue that the soldiers who had been arrested and were awaiting charges should not face a criminal sanction, “get off our soldiers, set them free,” he said.
I implore the reader of this article to read the B’tselem report, it is horrific, from sleep deprivation, beatings, killing under torture, refusal of medical treatment, inserting objects into anus’ and electric shocks are all detailed. B’tselem is a credible human rights organisation that takes evidence and presents that evidence without bias. The question that must be asked was why the state felt that they were above international law and why they felt that being as brutal as Hamas, was an answer to the brutality of Hamas at the initial stages of this war, but most of all it is a failure of government to act and manage a catastrophic action in a mature way.
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