Arab captives tortured in Israeli hospitals

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"A whistle-blower detailed how procedures in one military hospital were “routinely” carried out without painkillers, causing “an unacceptable amount of pain” to detainees.

Another whistle-blower said painkillers were used “selectively” and “in a very limited way” during an invasive medical procedure on a Gazan detainee in a public hospital.

He also said critically ill patients being held in makeshift military facilities were being denied proper treatment because of a reluctance by public hospitals to transfer and treat them.

One detainee, taken from Gaza for questioning by the Israeli army and later released, told the BBC his leg had to be amputated because he was denied treatment for an infected wound.

A senior doctor working inside the military hospital at the centre of the allegations denied that any amputations were the direct result of conditions there, but described the shackles and other restraints used by guards as “dehumanisation”.





www.bbc.co.uk

Gaza detainees shackled, blindfolded and in nappies at Israel hospital

Allegations centre on a military hospital where, a whistle-blower said, painkillers were "routinely" not used in procedures.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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"Their accounts are supported by a report, external, published in February by Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, which said that Israel’s civilian and military prisons had become “an apparatus of retribution and revenge” and that detainees’ human rights were being violated - in particular their right to health."
 
"Israeli forces have rounded up large numbers of people from Gaza and taken them to bases like Sde Teiman for interrogation. Those suspected of fighting for Hamas are sent to Israeli detention centres; many others are released back to Gaza without charge.
The army does not publish details of the detainees it is holding.

Patients at the Sde Teiman hospital are kept blindfolded and permanently shackled to their beds by all four limbs, according to several medics responsible for treating patients there.
They are also made to wear nappies, rather than use a toilet."
 
"But witnesses, including the facility’s senior anaesthiologist, Yoel Donchin, say both the use of nappies and handcuffs are universal in the hospital ward.

“The army create the patient to be 100% dependent, like a baby,” he said. “You are cuffed, you are with diapers, you need water, you need everything – it’s dehumanisation”.

Dr Donchin said there was no individual assessment of the need for restraints, and that even those patients who were unable to walk – for example, those with leg amputations – were handcuffed to the bed. He described the practice as “stupid”.

Two witnesses at the facility in the early weeks of the Gaza war told us that patients there were kept naked under the blankets.

One doctor with knowledge of conditions there said prolonged cuffing to beds would cause “huge suffering, horrible suffering”, describing it as “torture” and saying patients would start to feel pain after a few hours.

Others have spoken of the risk of long-term nerve-damage."
 
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"Footage of Gazan detainees released after interrogation shows injuries and scarring around their wrists and legs.

Last month, Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at the Sde Teiman site that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries.

The allegations were made, the paper said, in a private letter sent by the doctor to government ministers and the attorney-general, in which such amputations were described as “unfortunately a routine event”.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify this allegation.

Dr Donchin said that amputations were not the direct result of cuffing and had involved other factors – such as infection, diabetes or problems with blood vessels.

Israeli medical guidelines stipulate that no patient should be restrained unless there is a specific security reason for doing so, and that the minimum level of restraint should be used."
 
"A whistle-blower who worked at the Sde Teiman field hospital back in October, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel, described cases of patients being given inadequate amounts of painkillers, including anaesthetic.

He said a doctor once refused his request that an elderly patient be given painkillers while they were opening up a recent, infected amputation wound.

“[The patient] started trembling from pain, and so I stop and say ‘we can’t go on, you need to give him analgesia’,” he said.

The doctor told him it was too late to administer it.

The witness said such procedures were “routinely done without analgesia” resulting in “an unacceptable amount of pain”.

On another occasion, he was asked by a suspected Hamas fighter to intercede with the surgical team to increase the levels of morphine and anaesthetic during repeated surgeries.

The message was passed on, but the suspect again regained consciousness during the next operation and was in a lot of pain. The witness said both he and other colleagues felt there was a sense in which it had been a deliberate act of revenge."
 
"He said at least one critically ill man was kept there because of a reluctance by public hospitals to accept his transfer for treatment, adding that doctors at the base were “frustrated” by the situation.

Sufian Abu Salah, a 43-year-old taxi driver from Khan Youis, was one of dozens of men detained during raids by Israel's army and taken to a military base for questioning.

He said soldiers carried out severe beatings during the journey and also on arrival at the base, where he was denied treatment for a minor wound on his foot, which then became infected.

“My leg got infected and turned blue, and as soft as a sponge,” he told the BBC.

After a week, he said, the guards took him to hospital, beating him on his injured leg on the way. Two operations to clean his wound did not work, he told the BBC.

“Afterwards, they took me to a public hospital, where the doctor gave me two options: my leg or my life.”
He chose his life. After they amputated his leg, he was sent back to the military base, and later released back to Gaza.

"This period was mental and physical torture,” he said. “I can’t describe it. I was detained with two legs and now I have only one. Every now and then, I cry.”
 
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