An Israeli soldier has been found guilty of severe assaults of Palestinian detainees from Gaza, the first conviction for abuse in a system where dozens of people have died in custody and whistleblowers say torture and violence is rife.
Israel Hajabi, 25, repeatedly attacked bound and blindfolded detainees with his fists, a baton and his assault rifle, a military court found, describing his actions as “serious and severe”. On one day alone, 5 June last year, at the Sde Teiman detention centre he beat two men 15 times.
The assaults were committed between January and June 2024 when he was guarding detainees from Gaza. They were captured on video and continued as targets cried out in pain. Hajabi also forced detainees to make animal noises and repeat humiliating phrases.
Hajabi was sentenced to seven months after a plea deal, which rights groups said was too short to serve as a deterrent. They questioned why authorities had not identified masked soldiers seen in videos of the attacks or prosecuted other cases of documented violent abuse against prisoners and detainees.
“It is difficult to ignore the fact that the sentence does not constitute a significant deterrent,” the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, an NGO, said in a statement. “[The attacks] constitute serious abuse that requires a much more severe punishment. It is important to remember that there were other people involved in the incident who were not brought to justice, and many other cases of abuse have not been investigated at all to this day.”
Hajabi was detained in the summer at the same time as nine other Israeli soldiers, who face allegations of sexual abuse so violent it left a detainee in critical condition.
Their arrests prompted an invasion of two military bases by politicians and demonstrators, mostly representing far-right parties, who were furious about the arrests and described the men as heroes.
Pre-indictment hearings were held in this case in November, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources who denied political considerations had caused delays.
Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Palestinian rights group Adalah, said: “[Hajabi’s] case, including the punishment, indicates that Israel has a policy of impunity when it comes to their soldiers. Whatever they do, at most they will have a light sentence.”
He said Palestinian citizens of Israel had been handed longer jail terms for posts on social media.
Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation and other abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been normalised across Israel’s jail system, according to interviews with released prisoners. Mistreatment now so systemic that the rights group B’Tselem says it must be considered a policy of “institutionalised abuse”.
Detainees from Gaza are particularly vulnerable. The Israeli NGO HaMoked described the conditions in which these detainees were held as “a mass enforced disappearance”, because they are held incommunicado in unknown locations, without legal proceedings or contact with a lawyer.
By early December, at least 38 Gaza residents detained in Israel had died in custody, Haaretz reported.
Sde Teiman camp in the Negev desert was set up as a temporary detention centre for holding Palestinians from Gaza after the cross-border Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.
