Miguel Afonso Caetano<p>"We have conducted in-depth interviews with five released detainees, all of whom were arrested in Gaza in the months after Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostage. The men were held under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, a measure by which people suspected of posing a security risk can be detained for an unspecified period without charge, as Israel set out to recover the hostages and dismantle the proscribed terror group.</p><p>The men say they were accused of having links with Hamas and questioned over the location of hostages and tunnels, but were not found to be involved in the 7 October 2023 attacks - a condition Israel had set for anyone released under the recent ceasefire deal.</p><p>Some of those freed under the deal were serving sentences for other serious crimes, including the killing of Israelis, but that was not the case for our interviewees. We also asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) if there were any convictions or accusations against the men but they did not respond to that question.</p><p>In the men's testimony:</p><p>- They each describe being stripped, blindfolded, cuffed and beaten<br>- Some also say they were given electric shocks, menaced by dogs, and denied access to medical care<br>- Some say they witnessed the deaths of other detainees<br>- One says he witnessed sexual abuse<br>- Another says he had his head dunked in chemicals and his back set on fire"</p><p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7vje365rno" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">bbc.com/news/articles/cn7vje36</span><span class="invisible">5rno</span></a></p><p><a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Israel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Israel</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Palestine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Palestine</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Gaza" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Gaza</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/HumanRights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>HumanRights</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Torture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Torture</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Genocide" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Genocide</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/IDF" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IDF</span></a></p>