A photo of this Gaza man at an Israeli detention camp was leaked to CNN. He tells CBC what happened inside
WARNING: This text accommodates particulars of abuse.
It is a photo that shortly circulated on social media: A man standing at a barbed wire fence, arms behind his head and blindfolded. A group of males sit behind him in rows, additionally blindfolded. Everybody wears the identical gray tracksuit.
The picture was taken at Sde Teiman within the Negev desert in southern Israel. Over the past a number of months, the obscure barracks — a navy base partially transformed right into a detention facility throughout the Gaza warfare — have turn out to be the centre of accusations that the Israeli navy is severely abusing Palestinian detainees.
The truth is, due to widespread outcry, the bulk of detainees have been transferred out of Sde Teiman.
And the photo, originally leaked to CNN in Might, has turn out to be emblematic of these alleged situations.
Freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife, who has been working with CBC from Gaza, tracked down its topic: Ibrahim Salem, a 38-year-old from northern Gaza who was in Israeli detention for eight months and was launched Aug. 3. He confirmed he was the man pictured. CBC additionally independently verified that the picture was of him.
Salem was held in a number of places throughout his detention and was in Sde Teiman for simply 52 days. However, he says, his time there was the worst of his detainment.
This undated photo taken in winter 2023 at Sde Teiman was offered by Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group of former Israeli troopers. CBC has verified it’s of Salem, who was picked up throughout an IDF siege at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. (Breaking The Silence/The Related Press)
Amongst different allegations, Salem says he was stripped bare, psychologically tormented and overwhelmed. And by the point he was launched, the world had seen the photo of him — together with his household.
CBC Information reached out to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for touch upon the claims in this story. It referred CBC to a earlier press launch responding to a New York Instances story about Sde Teiman, largely denying allegations of abuse.
“The IDF rejects outright allegations concerning systematic abuse of detainees in the Sde Teiman detention facility, including allegations of sexually abusing detainees, electrocuting detainees and stripping detainees of their clothes during interrogations,” the IDF assertion mentioned.
Arrested at Kamal Adwan Hospital
Salem was nonetheless in northern Gaza in December 2023. He had been sheltering at the Kamal Adwan Hospital after his home was bombed, killing a lot of his household, together with his spouse, sister, brother and nephew. His youngsters had been being handled for accidents at the hospital when it was besieged by the IDF on Dec. 11 throughout a seek for Hamas operatives. That was when he was taken, he says.
“They walked with me a bit and then made me take off all my clothes,” Salem instructed El Saife.
“[I was] completely naked.”
He says he was by no means instructed what crime he was accused of committing.
WATCH | Man held at infamous Israeli jail speaks about situations there: 
Man pictured in viral photo at Israeli jail speaks
Ibrahim Salem’s photo at the Sde Teiman jail in Israel’s Negev desert went viral after it was leaked to CNN and unfold on social media. Salem says standing at the fence together with his arms up as he was seen doing within the photo, was a kind of punishment he endured throughout his 52 day detention within the navy base turned jail.
He says he was dragged by his hair and overwhelmed. He was taken to an unknown location, he mentioned, blindfolded together with his palms tied behind his again, the place he was interrogated.
An officer smashed a plastic chair on his chest, he mentioned, allegedly breaking some of his ribs and inflicting him to briefly lose consciousness.
The officer screamed at him, accusing him of being concerned with Hamas, which Salem denied.
He spent two days in one other facility, he says, below related situations. After that, he was taken to Sde Teiman, the place he says “the torture journey began.”
The photo of detainee No. 189
Salem’s remaining household acknowledged him within the leaked photo, he mentioned. However, he says, it did not inform the total story of what was occurring within the second and the “worst days” of his detainment at Sde Teiman, the place he was generally known as detainee No. 189.
“You’re on your knees,” he mentioned. “Your hands are handcuffed, your legs are cuffed and you’re blindfolded.
“The primary 10 or 15 days, my palms had been behind my again.”
This undated photo from winter 2023 offered by Breaking the Silence exhibits Palestinian prisoners in Sde Teiman. Israeli troopers have been accused of abusing detainees at the ability. (Breaking The Silence/The Related Press)
As a form of punishment, he says, detainees were made to stand at a barbed-wire fence for hours, sometimes on one foot, and were tormented psychologically by their handlers.
“You are standing they usually’re all spitting on you,” he said.
If he wanted to go home, or sit down, he says, he was told to repeat insults about his family.
In those moments, Salem says, he begged to not have to say them, and that he wanted simply to die with dignity.
One day, he said, a soldier ordered him to stand at the fence, blindfolded with his arms up. He says he did this for five hours — and it was in that time that he heard a click. They were taking photos of him.
The picture ended up in a CNN article, leaked by the Israeli whistleblower who took the photo. The story detailed related allegations of abuse at the ability.
Close to the top of his detention at Sde Teiman, Salem says he was introduced right into a room the place he was questioned in regards to the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza.
Israeli troopers stand by a truck filled with shirtless Palestinian detainees in December 2023. (Yossi Zeliger/Reuters)
“[The soldiers were] asking me in regards to the hostages. I am a hostage,” he said.
“You bombed my home, killed the kids and my siblings.
“Hostages? I have nothing to do with that.”
Months later, he was ultimately launched from Israeli detention, together with 14 others, in Khan Younis.
A day after his launch, Salem sat in a tent within the southern Gaza metropolis, the gap between him and his household huge — break up by the warfare.
Allegations at Sde Teiman
Sde Teiman is one of three navy bases partially transformed into detention centres after the Israel-Hamas warfare started. Israel says it’s meant to maintain and interrogate detainees from Gaza suspected of being concerned with Hamas. Many are held with out cost or authorized illustration.
The Israel-Hamas warfare started on Oct. 7, when a Hamas-led assault on southern Israel killed 1,200 and took over 200 hostages taken into Gaza, by Israeli counts. The following incursion on the Gaza Strip has killed over 39,000, in accordance to Palestinian figures.
Israeli legislation stipulates that Palestinians from Gaza may be held at navy prisons, with out a detention order, trial or cost, for over a month, in accordance to The Related Press.
Allegations of abuse from former detainees at Sde Teiman have become widespread during the last a number of months, significantly after Israel’s Channel 12 aired leaked surveillance footage that it mentioned confirmed Israeli troopers sexually assaulting a male Palestinian detainee.
The IDF has beforehand declined to touch upon the video, however navy police arrested 10 troopers suspected of being concerned within the alleged assault. (5 are now not below investigation.) The arrests triggered protests from far-right Israelis, together with some lawmakers.
Israeli troopers collect at the gate to the Sde Teiman navy base, the place troopers accused of abusing detainees had been being questioned on July 9. (Tsafrir Abayov/The Related Press)
The bulk of the detainees have been transferred out of Sde Teiman — simply 28 stay, in accordance to state filings considered by the AP.
And since June, human rights teams have been preventing in courtroom to have Sde Teiman closed. On Wednesday, the Israeli Supreme Courtroom weighed a petition to accomplish that.
State attorneys mentioned experiences of poor situations had been inaccurate, and that detainees got meals, water, common showers and entry to medical therapy. They mentioned detainees had been blindfolded and handcuffed over employees security considerations.
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Shai Parnes, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, says he wasn’t shocked when Israeli media launched a video that purports to present Israeli guards sexually assaulting a Palestinian inmate at the Sde Teiman detention camp. B’Tselem not too long ago launched a report documenting allegations of widespread abuse in opposition to Palestinians in Israeli detention. He instructed As It Occurs visitor host Catherine Cullen what they discovered.
The courtroom gave the state every week and a half to give extra details about situations at the jail.
B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based non-profit, launched a report final week based mostly on the testimony of 55 former Palestinian detainees at Israeli amenities and the “inhuman conditions” they had been held in since Oct. 7.
“Their testimonies uncover a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners,” it mentioned.
What’s subsequent for Salem
On the day CBC spoke to Salem, he was nonetheless calling household and associates to inform them he had survived. Grateful to be alive, he mentioned his launch was a shock.
Salem was launched a methods away from the place he was picked up by IDF forces in December.
“They threw me at the border near Kissufim and started shooting at me,” he mentioned.
Then, they instructed him to run.
“Don’t stop or look behind you,” he mentioned they instructed him.
“Go to Gaza.”