Doctor who reported abuse of Palestinian detainee: I blamed fellow prisoners
Anesthesiologist Yoel Donchin, who treated terror suspects at Sde Teiman, confirms seeing signs of serious sexual abuse, says he didn’t think Israelis ‘would do something like that’
A doctor who worked at the Sde Teiman detention facility said there was no way he could have ignored the signs of serious sexual abuse that he reported seeing on a Palestinian detainee he treated recently at the Israel Defense Forces base in southern Israel.
Speaking to the Kan broadcaster in an interview aired Friday evening, Doctor Yoel Donchin confirmed a report from medical sources that the detainee had presented at the field hospital with broken ribs and signs of physical abuse on multiple bones. He also confirmed that something round had been inserted deep into the detainee’s rectum, causing a tear in the lower bowel and damage to one of the lungs that required emergency surgery.
In the past week, ten IDF reserve soldiers have been detained on suspicion of abusing the Palestinian terror suspect, eight of whom remain in custody.
According to the IDF, the soldiers were suspected of aggravated sodomy (a charge equivalent to rape), causing bodily harm under aggravated circumstances, abuse under aggravated circumstances and conduct unbecoming of a soldier.
The veteran anesthesiologist told Kan that although he felt an obligation as a doctor to report the signs of abuse, it had not crossed his mind that the detainee had been tortured by his Israeli guards.
“Just as I would if a child or a woman turned up at a hospital with signs of abuse, in this case, our impression was that this was an incident that needed to be reported,” he said.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that the other prisoners had… what, we [Israelis] would do something like that?!”
“If he’s a big [Hamas elite force] Nukhba criminal and he killed people, he’ll stand trial, but I’m not the judge,” the doctor, who said he has been criticized for both whistleblowing and for treating suspected terrorists, insisted.
Following Donchin’s report and a subsequent investigation, the reservists were arrested by masked Military Police detectives at Sde Teiman on Monday.
After the arrests, a mob of far-right activists and lawmakers broke into the base and demonstrated, and later stormed the Beit Lid base where the suspects were being held and questioned.
The doctor also told Kan that though he had seen cases of “injuries from zip ties” used as handcuffs, as reported in a CNN investigative report published in May, he had not seen another case of such serious abuse while working at the Sde Teiman facility.
CNN’s report was based on testimony from three Israeli whistleblowers who had been at Sde Temian, as well as from former detainees, claiming widespread abuse of the detainees, including extreme use of physical restraints, amputations due to prolonged use of handcuffs, beatings, neglect of medical problems, arbitrary punishments, and humiliating and degrading treatment, such as denial of toilet use.
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians since the Hamas invasion and massacres on October 7, including terrorists caught in Israel following the assault, combatants caught in Gaza during the IDF’s operations, as well as others suspected of connections to terror organizations or terrorist activity. Many of the unlawful combatants from Gaza were taken to Sde Teiman.
The guards detained in connection with the suspected sexual abuse are from the Force 100 unit, a prison riot control unit of the Military Police that also deals with transfers of security prisoners between different detention facilities.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
