Reuters, AFP and Europa Press

The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 7, 2024, p. 27

Jerusalem. Israel has carried out a systematic policy of ill-treatment and torture of prisoners since the beginning of the war in Gaza, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has accused.

In a report published days after the Israeli army arrested nine soldiers accused of mistreating a prisoner at a military facility in the Negev Desert, Israeli media reported that they were accused of sexually abusing a member of an elite Hamas unit.

B’Tselem detailed beatings, degrading treatment, sleep deprivation and the repeated use of sexual violence in varying degrees of severity.

A prison spokesman said that since the October 7 attack, far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered stricter prison conditions.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army reported that in the last 24 hours it eliminated 45 fighters Hamas, while confirming, after a thorough researchthe death of the last person still missing in Israel following the October 7 attacks.

Meanwhile, Palestinian authorities have estimated that 12 people have died yesterday in three Israeli operations in the reoccupied West Bank.

The death toll since the start of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip has risen to 39,653, and the number of wounded or maimed has reached 91,535.

Meanwhile, ultra-Orthodox protesters stormed the Tel Hashomer army base in protest against their recruitment into the Gaza Strip.

Historically, ultra-Orthodox Jews were exempt from mandatory military service in Israel if they devoted themselves to the study of sacred Jewish texts, a rule established by David Ben-Gurion, founder of the State of Israel, in 1948. But in June the Supreme Court ordered their conscription.