‘Everyone was surprised by his arrival’: Former Sde Teiman detainees reject claims against Palestinian doctor
By Abeer Salman, Mohammed al Sawalihi and Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN
(CNN) — Two Palestinian former detainees who were recently released from Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman detention center said they saw the prominent Palestinian physician Hussam Abu Safiya there last month, saying he was in “poor condition” when he arrived.
The former detainees said Abu Safiya appeared physically and mentally exhausted, and that they were surprised to see him there.
Israel has not specified where Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, is being detained, but has said he is under investigation for being a member of Hamas, an allegation the former detainees say is false.
“Everyone was surprised by his arrival because he is a humanitarian doctor who does not belong to any organization,” said Mustafa Hassouna, one of the former detainees who was released alongside another former detainee, Mohammad Al-Ramlawi, in central Gaza last month.
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) detained Abu Safiya at the end of raid that closed his hospital, the last major functioning health facility in northern Gaza in December.
Israel said the hospital was being used as a base by Hamas.
In an interview from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza on Thursday, Hassouna told CNN that when he saw Abu Safiya at Sde Teiman, he was “exhausted” and unable to speak at first. But the former detainees said they did not believe Abu Safiya had been tortured.
A CNN investigation previously revealed allegations of abuse at the detention center, including doctors who had amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
A lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), a human rights organization, told CNN Friday that Abu Safiya was taken to a court in Ashkelon without the knowledge or presence of a lawyer, and that Israeli authorities extended his detention until February 13.
The IDF told CNN Friday that Abu Safiya “is currently being investigated by Israeli security forces.”
Al-Ramlawi told CNN he saw Abu Safiya when the Israeli military brought him to the detention center at around 10 p.m. on December 27.
“Abu Safiya came to us in a very poor condition,” Al-Ramlawi said.
“We asked him what was wrong, and he said he was humiliated and mistreated,” Al-Ramlawi said, adding that Abu Safiya told him and other detainees that the Israeli army “came to the hospital, killed five medical staff members, and burned Kamal Adwan Hospital in front of the doctor’s eyes.”
Al-Ramlawi said that Abu Safiya was known to have restricted entry into Kamal Adwan hospital, especially towards the end of his time there. The doctor did so to make sure the medical facility was not being used by any factions, Al-Ramlawi said, referring to Hamas militants and other armed groups.
“If they (the IDF) really had anything on Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, they would have killed him at Kamal Adwan Hospital,” Hassouna said.
Mistreatment of detainees
Both of the former detainees described rough conditions at the military base in Israel’s Negev desert, which doubles as a detention facility. They both said that Abu Safiya was held in “cell number two.” Their area of detention included four barracks and six cells, one detainee said.
Abu Safiya has not been seen publicly since he was arrested late December. He had previously been detained at the end of October but was released several hours later. His mother died of a heart attack this week, his family said in a statement on Tuesday.
Both Al-Ramlawi and Hassouna said they were tortured at Sde Teiman.
“We are suffering from many things, including lack of food and severe cold,” Al-Rimlai told CNN, noting that prisoners were forced to sit in painful positions for hours on end.
“The humiliation is unbearable,” he said. “The treatment given to us by the military is very, very bad.”
Hassouna said soldiers discharged pepper spray into prisoners’ eyes and used dogs to frighten them.
In response to the allegations, the IDF told CNN in a statement that “mistreatment of detainees during their detention is against the law and the IDF’s orders and is therefore strictly prohibited.”
The IDF “rejects allegations of systemic abuse of detainees, including through violence or torture,” the statement said, adding that “in certain cases, members of the detention staff have been dismissed for not behaving as expected and in accordance with the facility’s procedures.”
Al-Ramlawi said that on his last day at Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya asked him to contact his wife and son in Gaza, and to ask his family to “reach out to the press, the Red Cross, or any organization to help with his situation and the crisis he is in.”
Former detainees told CNN that all detainees brought to Sde Teiman are interrogated and are asked the same questions about the whereabouts of the Israeli hostages, the tunnels used by Hamas and where Hamas keeps its weapons.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that information about interrogations in Sde Teiman was provided to CNN by former detainees.
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