Khaberni - The Palestinian Center for Human Rights documented one of the most heinous crimes that could be committed against humanity and its dignity, based on new testimonies gathered by the center's team from several Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip who were recently released from Israeli prisons.
These testimonies revealed a systematic and organized practice of sexual torture, including rape, stripping, forced photography, sexual assault with tools and dogs, in addition to intentional psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and completely erasing individual identity.
The center confirmed that these violations are not isolated incidents, but part of a systematic policy within an ongoing genocide against the residents of the Gaza Strip, including thousands of detainees held in prisons and camps closed to international supervision, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The documented testimonies included rape cases committed by occupation soldiers against Palestinian civilians, including women, who were arrested from various areas in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, without any legal justification, as part of a collective punishment policy aimed at humiliating them and inflicting maximum psychological and physical harm.
Among these cases, N. A., a 42-year-old Palestinian woman and mother, was arrested while passing through one of the Israeli checkpoints in northern Gaza Strip in November 2024.
In her testimony to the center's team, she spoke about experiencing multiple forms of torture and sexual violence, including being raped four times by Israeli soldiers, alongside being cursed at with obscene words, stripped, photographed naked, electrocuted, and beaten all over her body.
N. A. told the center's lawyer: "In the early morning hours, I heard the soldiers shouting and saying that prayer in the morning was forbidden, and I think it was the fourth day of detention from Gaza. I was transferred by the soldiers to an unknown place because I was blindfolded and they asked me to undress which I did, and then I was placed on an iron table with my chest and head on the table and my hands were handcuffed at the end of the bed and my legs were pulled strongly and spread forcibly apart. I felt the insertion of a penis into my anus and felt a man's body raping me. I started screaming and then I was hit on my back and head while I was blindfolded and felt the man ejaculating inside the anus. I was screaming and being beaten throughout, and I heard the sound of the camera and I think they were photographing me. The rape lasted about 10 minutes then I was left in the same position for an hour with my hands shackled at the edges of the bed with iron handcuffs and my face on the bed and my feet on the ground, and I was without any clothes."
She adds :" Once more, after an hour, I was completely raped in the same position where the penis was inserted into my vagina, and I was being beaten while I screamed. There were several soldiers present as I could hear them laughing and the sound of the camera capturing images. The rape lasted a very short time during which there was no ejaculation. Throughout the rape, I was being beaten with hands on my head and back.
I cannot describe what I felt, I wished for death at every moment. After the rape, I was left alone afterwards in the same room with my hands shackled to the bed without any clothes for long hours. I could hear the soldiers outside speaking Hebrew and laughing. After that, I was raped again from the vagina and I screamed, but they beat me every time I tried to resist. After a period exceeding an hour or less I do not know the time, a masked soldier entered, and he unbandaged my eyes, lifted the cover from his face and he was fair-skinned, tall. He asked me if I spoke English, I said no, he said I am Russian, and he asked me to fondle his penis, but I refused and he hit me in the face after he had raped me."
That means that on this day I was raped twice and left a whole day without clothes inside the room where I spent three days. The first day I was raped twice, the second day I was raped twice, and the third day I was left without any clothes and they were looking at me from the door hole and photographed me. One of the soldiers told me they would publish my photos on social media pages. While I was inside the room, I got my menstrual period and then they ordered me to wear clothes and I was transferred to another room."
It is noteworthy that the center issued a detailed report in May 2025 based on the testimony of 100 detainees released, on brutal torture methods, humiliating treatment, and inhumane detention conditions, affirming that these violations not only meet the definition of torture according to international law, but rise to the level of genocide.
In light of these violations, the center urged the international community, including the countries that ratified the Convention Against Torture and the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, all human rights and humanitarian institutions, to take immediate action to end the policy of systematic torture and enforced disappearance, to ensure the release of all arbitrarily detained Palestinians, to disclose the locations of those forcibly disappeared, and to enable the International Committee of the Red Cross to access all detention sites unrestrictedly.
The center also warned that thousands of Palestinian detainees face the risk of death, especially in light of an Israeli bill that allows the application of the death penalty against Palestinian prisoners, after extracting coerced confessions resulting from brutal torture, which could lead to mass executions in blatant violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law.
The center called on the international community, the Palestinian Authority, and local and international institutions to provide immediate protection and comprehensive psychological and medical care for the victims and survivors of torture, to ensure the confidentiality of their identities and their safety, asserting its commitment to continue documenting these crimes and providing evidence to United Nations mechanisms and the International Criminal Court to hold the perpetrators accountable and prevent impunity.
