TEHRAN - On Tuesday, Israel’s Channel 12 news aired surveillance footage that shows Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman facility in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

The video shows as the detainee, Ibrahim Salem, is being sexually assaulted, other detainees, while blindfolded, are lying face down with their hands behind their heads. The detainee was then taken to a corner where the abuse occurred.

What has happened to Ibrahim Salem is just the tip of the iceberg as about 9,500 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons and military bases, and at least 53 of them have died in custody in the 10 months since Oct. 7, according to UN figures.

Salem, 36, told Middle East Eye that the abuse included rape, electrocution and frequent beatings. “Most of the prisoners will come out with rectum injuries [caused by the sexual assault],” Salem told Middle East Eye. 

Salem also said the verbal insults included, "We f… your mother”.

Jeremy Laurence, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), has expressed shock over the shocking video. “It is one of many seen in recent months involving gross violations against Palestinian detainees by Israel,” Laurence told Anadolu on Thursday.

He said a recent report by his office highlights "several gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws, including sexual and gender-based violence against people deprived of their liberty, some of which may amount to war crimes."

"We again reiterate our call on Israel to give immediate access to independent monitoring bodies, such as the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and OHCHR, to all places of detention," he added.

Israeli rights group B'Tselem also said in a report on Monday (August 6) that Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the Gaza war in October, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse. B’Tselem called the abuse and torture against Palestinian detainees “systematic” and described detention centers as “torture camps.”

The footage from surveillance cameras at the Sde Teiman facility shows the Israeli soldiers were aware of the cameras and tried to conceal their faces. “The video contains a documentation to the felony of the reservists: the act of sodomy in these circumstances,” the report said, according to Anadolu Agency.

The news channel added that the Palestinian detainee was taken to the hospital after bleeding for several hours, describing his condition as “complex.”

“The injury was caused by the insertion of an object,” it said, quoting a medical report.

Following the incident, which took place in late July, nine soldiers were arrested. However, Israeli extremists, including some members of the Knesset, clashed with military police at the Sde Teiman facility.

These scandalous acts are being committed by the army of a regime whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote in a post on X that “The IDF is the most moral army in the world and no delusional decision by the UN will change that.”

As we came to understand from Netanyahu's speech at the U.S. Congress the difference between “barbarism” and “civilization”, now we also understand what “the most moral army in the world” means. 

To justify the army’s savagery in Gaza which has so far caused unimaginable suffering for Palestinian civilians, in his speech at the U.S. Congress on July 25 the criminal-in-chief said, “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization.”

Probably, sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees also falls within Netanyahu’s definition of barbarism versus civilization.

What Israel is doing in Gaza is a disgrace to humanity. 10 months into the war against Gaza, the so-called Israel Defense Forces are still committing crimes that make humanity feel shameless.

To break the morale of the Palestinians, Israel leaves no stone unturned. Not satisfied with the repeated massacre of Palestinians, it seems the sadistic Israelis with the support of extremist rulers have stepped up the sexual abuse of detainees so that they would commit suicide after possible release.

Once in a while, a new stage of crimes against Palestinians is being revealed by Israelis themselves. It extends from the intentional killing of civilians and deliberate destruction of their homes to sexually abusing them.

It has been for a long time that the United Nations has raised the alarm about the abuse of Palestinian detainees. A report published last month by the OHCHR found evidence of “a range of appalling acts” enacted against Palestinian detainees.

In interviews with the OHCHR, 55 Palestinian detainees had detailed they were subjected to arbitrary beatings, degrading and humiliating treatment, forced unhygienic conditions, denial of medical treatment, sleep deprivation, and sexual violence of varying degrees.

These acts are primarily being done with the illusion of forcing the Palestinians not to dare to protest the occupation and discrimination. But these acts will surely fail to force Palestinians to give in to the Israeli apartheid. Only Israel is seen and will continue to be seen as a savage and immoral regime.