Disappeared: Inside Israel’s ‘Torture Camps’
Thousands of Palestinians, including children, are being rounded up, blindfolded, zip-tied, and imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities—many tortured and held without charges or trials.
As Gaza smolders, Lebanon burns, and the world rightfully continues to demand Hamas release the remaining hostages it abducted during its massacre on October 7th 2023, we illuminate the underreported plight of Palestinians held and abused throughout what one human rights group dubs Israel’s ‘network of torture camps,’ where men, women, and children—yes, children—are imprisoned, beaten, sodomized, raped, and/or murdered.
Inmates undergo amputations due to prolonged shackling, genital electrocutions, waterboarding, and other sinister forms of torment. Many are held without charges or trials; some indefinitely.
The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned these crimes, and whistleblowers have been leaking more and more glimpses into the horrors taking place behind their walls, yet these detention facilities and those imprisoned haven’t garnered much international outcry, if any.
Our guests Milena Ansari of Human Rights Watch and Jenna Abuhasna of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association—who spoke with us from Jerusalem and Ramallah, respectively—discuss the deplorable conditions, controversial policies, and horrific abuses occurring at these facilities, along with the quest for accountability, and ultimately, freedom.
It’s impossible to fully convey the sheer pain and suffering endured by Palestinians throughout the Israeli Occupied Territories since last October. U.S. taxpayer-financed bombs and weaponry unleashed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have slaughtered 44,000 civilians and counting, with scores more injured or still buried beneath the rubble of hospitals, neighborhoods, and refugee encampments—the majority of those killed women and children.
In America, we see but mere glimpses of the utter devastation, sandwiched between Ozempic and Amazon commercials. We hear the disingenuous urging for ceasefires by politicians and the president, while those very same people send billions more in arms to fuel the massacres. We watch the heartbroken loved ones of those Israelis taken by Hamas as world leaders reiterate demands for their swift return.
Yet mainstream news outlets and world leaders remain shamefully silent on the scores upon scores of Palestinians being seized in not-so-secret—some mere children—and imprisoned in detention camps throughout the region.
We never hear their voices. We do not learn of their plights. We will likely never know their names.
Why We Covered This Topic
Abduction, torture, and murder should be condemned, no matter the perpetrators, and accountability pursued.
When such atrocities are committed against Palestinians, however, the world somehow goes mum. We will not.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Thousands upon thousands of Palestinians are being rounded up and held in makeshift detention facilities across the Israeli Occupied Territories, where they’re subjected to deplorable conditions and many are tortured—with some never making it out alive.
Many detainees are imprisoned without charges or trials, some indefinitely.
Children are among the inmates at these makeshift camps.
Inmates undergo beatings, sodomies, rapes, waterboarding, genital electrocutions, and more. Some have had their limbs amputated—without anesthesia—due to their hands and ankles being zip-tied for prolonged periods.
Who We Interviewed & What They Said
Milena Ansari, who spoke to us from Jerusalem, is the Israel and Palestine assistant researcher at the Middle East and North Africa division at nonprofit Human Rights Watch, where she monitors and reports on human rights conditions and abuses. She’s a lawyer who previously worked with Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations—primarily looking into violations and respect for rights for Palestinian prisoners, detainees, and children.
“There has been a culture of impunity. And we repeatedly, we repeatedly say, the culture of impunity that is in the region fuels further abuses and fuels more violations of human rights. So really, to properly end the bloodshed and the suffering in this region or in this area, I would say, really, there needs to be addressing to the root causes of the situation… Israel[’s] systematic oppression of Palestinians, with the inhumane acts that are constantly being carried out as part of the domination of the oppression with the intent to really prioritize Jewish Israeli rights over Palestinian rights—this whole crime or this whole situation amounts to apartheid and persecution. And as long as the structural repression is not really addressed, or is properly tackled, bloodshed, unfortunately, will continue.”
Jenna Abuhasna, who spoke to us from Ramallah, is the international advocacy officer at Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association, which provides critical legal services to Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including representation and visitation, documenting torture, medical negligence, and other violence, as well as raising awareness about their plights. In 2021, Israel designated it and several other Palestinian human rights groups ‘terrorist organizations’—charges U.N. human rights experts vehemently denounce.
“They were kept in these outside cages, in these open cages. They're blindfolded as well throughout their entire detention, from the moment that they're detained till they're released. And they're also zip tied very tightly, from the moment that they're arrested until they're released, and to the point that many complications have come out because of these zip ties. So a lot of the detainees still have the lasting marks on their arms, because of the effects of the zip ties, and as well as Israeli medical staff whistleblowers from these camps have come out and said that they were forced to amputate limbs of these prisoners, of some of these prisoners, due to the harshness of ties that they were forced to stay in.”
Additional Resources
Read the United Nations Human Rights Office report we mentioned in the episode about the “arbitrary, prolonged and incommunicado detention by Israeli authorities, affecting thousands of Palestinians since last October.”
Watch, hear, and read the testimonies of more than 50 Palestinian former prisoners featured in the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem ‘s report “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps” also referenced in our episode.
Check out all the critical work of Human Rights Watch to end human rights violations around the world, and its numerous reports chronicling the ongoing, mass suffering in Palestine.
Learn more about Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association’s vital mission supporting, representing, and advocating for Palestinian political prisoners throughout the region, and its relentless campaign to end torture and other human rights violations.
Read South Africa’s genocide filing against Israel in the International Court of Justice
Listen to our previous coverage of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “9/11 Redux: Will the Israel-Hamas Conflict Lead to a Renewed War on Terror?” / “The Genocide Case Against Israel: Parts I & II” / “The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World” / and more.
Check out all our accompanying Substack pieces, too.
News Beat is a multi-award-winning podcast brought to you by Hypha HubSpot Development and Manny Faces Media.
Audio Editor/Sound Designer/Producer/Host: Manny Faces
Editor-In-Chief/Producer: Christopher Twarowski
Managing Editor/Producer: Rashed Mian
Episode Art: Jon Chim