US officials attend daily meetings at Israel’s Sde Teiman prison where Palestinians are tortured: Report

Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- Officials from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have been attending daily meetings at Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison where Israeli guards have tortured Palestinian detainees, according to a Monday report by The Guardian.

Citing three USAid officials, The Guardian reported that Israel’s humanitarian relief hub, known as the joint coordination board (JCB), began operating at Sde Teiman on 29 July, and coordinating its logistics with the US, United Nations and “a number of international NGOs”.

USAid is tasked with facilitating urgently needed humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

An internal USAid document reviewed by the newspaper referred to “the present JCB location on Sde Teiman IDF base”, which is located near Beersheba in southern Israel.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Guardian that two USAid officials travel to Sde Teiman daily for JCB meetings with Israeli and UN officials.

“I can’t sleep at night knowing that it’s going on,” one US official told the Guardian. “It’s another form of psychological torture to make someone work there.”

The Guardian added that the IDF confirmed the location of the JCB but did not respond to questions about the prison.

“USAid is working closely to ensure more effective dialogue between humanitarian partners and the Israeli government to improve the safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of humanitarian movements into and throughout Gaza,” a USAid spokesperson wrote by email.

“Due to security considerations, we do not comment on the specific locations of our staff.”

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), which oversees the JCB, holds daily meetings at the Sde Teiman base with USAid and UN representatives, the American officials told the Guardian.

“It’s a very big base,” a Cogat spokesperson said.

The sources say that the relocation of the humanitarian operations center to Sde Teiman has been a closely guarded secret, and that USAid documents and internal correspondence list the location as Beersheba.

An Israeli military factsheet confirms the consolidation of the JCB at the end of July without naming its location.

“Members meet every morning to discuss the day’s planned activities in detail,” the factsheet says.

“These efforts underscore Israel’s commitment to work in close collaboration with humanitarian actors and constantly improve existing mechanisms so that humanitarian teams can operate effectively, and that aid reaches those in need.”

But the officials who spoke with the Guardian said that the Israeli military has undermined coordination with the UN and humanitarian organizations over the past year, and the relocation of the JCB to Sde Teiman reflected that. “It seems like trolling,” one of them told the Guardian.

“Sde Teiman is only the tip of the iceberg”

Since October 2023, more than 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza have been detained by the Israeli military at Sde Teiman, often held without charge or evidence of wrongdoing.

Human rights groups and released detainees have said that thousands of Palestinians who have been through the facility have been subjected to severe abuse and torture, including rape, beatings, electric shocks and force feedings.

An Israeli doctor who worked at the camp reported prisoners “routinely” had limbs amputated as a result of prolonged handcuffing.

According to the UN, at least 27 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody since the war, including at Sde Teiman.

Officers at the facility told The New York Times that 35 Palestinians detained there since October 2023 had died either at the facility or after being brought to nearby hospitals.

“The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo,” Khaled Mahajneh, a lawyer who visited Sde Teiman, told +972 Magazine.

Sde Teiman is part of a network of detention facilities where torture has become widespread in the last year, according to “Welcome to Hell,” a report issued in August by Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem which showcases the testimonies of 55 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons and detention facilities in recent months, almost all without charges.

The testimonies reveal that Palestinians currently in Israeli prisons are being subjected to harsh arbitrary violence on a frequent basis, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation, forced lack of hygiene, sleep deprivation, restriction and punishment of religious worship, confiscation of all group and personal belongings, and denial of adequate medical care.

B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said: “The Sde Teiman detention camp is just the tip of the iceberg. As we speak, thousands of Palestinians are being held in inhuman conditions and subjected to relentless abuse. Some do not know why they were arrested; many will be released without trial.”

“This is the definition of a torture camp: a place that once you enter – no matter who you are or why you were arrested – you will be subjected to severe, deliberate, relentless pain and suffering.”

Israel is also investigating 10 Israeli soldiers and reservists who were posted at the prison for sexual violence, after one prisoner was hospitalized in critical condition.

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