THE NAZARETH TORTURE ROOM
Palestanian Protesters Recount Harrowing Details of Torture at the Hands of
Israeli Police
Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized them, and whomever dared to lift
his head upwards risked more beatings by officers. According to affidavits,
the floor of the room was covered in blood from the beatings.
by Jessica Buxbaum
June 25th, 2021
By Jessica Buxbaum
NAZARETH, ISRAEL - In May, the world watched Israel's brutal occupation on
full display: The forcible displacement of Sheikh Jarrah residents was
underway; Israeli security forces attacked Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa
Mosque during Ramadan; Israeli rocket fire rained down on Gaza; and Jewish
extremists chanted "Death to Arabs!" in the streets.
According to multiple testimonies, Israeli police in Nazareth ran a "torture
room" where they ruthlessly attacked Palestinian detainees during the wave
of demonstrations against Israel in May.
Now, as international headlines fade on Palestine, Israeli violence
continues.
'The floor of the room was covered in blood'
Faiz Zbedeiat was talking on the phone about 20 feet away from a protest in
Nazareth. The moment the 21-year-old student hung up the phone, Israeli
police threw a stun grenade into the street. An officer then charged at him
and punched him in the nose. Zbedeiat was soon encircled by police who
grabbed him, hit him, and pushed him toward a Border Police officer who
tried to slam his head against a wall.
"I asked why they were hitting me when I'm not resisting," Zbedeiat said. "I
put my hands behind my back even though they didn't handcuff me.
Nevertheless, the same Border Police officer hit me in the nose with the
walkie-talkie that he was holding."
The officers dragged Zbedeiat by his head to the police station, beating him
along the way.
"On the way, we met a policeman who appeared to be an officer, and he
started laughing and said to them: 'Did you only arrest him? That's not
enough. We need more,'" Zbedeiat said.
The beating continued inside the police station. Cops kicked, slapped, and
hit detainees with batons, laughing as they struck them.
Zbedeiat detailed how one officer smacked detainees with an M-16 rifle. He
watched as one man with a broken nose - face covered in blood - was
continuously hit by officers. Then Zbedeiat described his own treatment:
A police officer approached me and whispered in my ear, threatening me. He
cursed my mother, my sister, and my wife. He then asked, 'Did you
understand?' I didn't answer, and he immediately slapped me in the face. He
asked me again: 'Do you understand?' I still didn't answer and he slapped me
again in the face. Finally, he said 'Go explain to your friends.' He pushed
me back down to the floor and hit me again."
Israeli police torture
A Palestinian child is taken into an "observation post" after his arrest at
a protest in Jerusalem, June 10, 2021. Maya Alleruzzo | AP
Zbedeiat's violent detention in May is one of many such, according to Adalah
- The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The advocacy group
collected multiple sworn affidavits attesting to the abuse of Palestinian
protesters by Israeli officers, attorneys, bystanders, and children inside
Nazareth's police station from May 9 to May 14. The majority of the violent
arrests and most of the abuse were conducted by Israeli special forces,
including undercover Mista'aravim (counter-terror units within the Israeli
Army, Border Police, and Israel Police) officers pretending to be
Palestinians.
Adalah submitted a complaint to Israel's Attorney General and the chairman
of the Police Investigation Department on June 7. In their letter, Adalah
wrote:
Police officers led the detainees to a room located on the left side of the
entrance corridor to the station, forcing them to sit on the floor
handcuffed, to lower their heads towards the floor, and began to beat them
on all parts of their bodies, using kicks and clubs, slamming their heads
against walls or doors, and more. Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized
them, and whomever dared to lift his head upwards risked more beatings by
officers. According to affidavits, the floor of the room was covered in
blood from the beatings.
Police violence amounting to torture
Under Israeli law, authorities must respond to the letter within 45 days.
But Adalah attorney and co-author of the complaint, Wesam Sharaf, told
MintPress that Adalah has not received a response from the Attorney General
or Police Investigation Department. Adalah did receive a response from
Nazareth's Chief of Police, stating that he will cooperate if there's an
investigation and will take the appropriate disciplinary actions.
"What happened inside the police station in Nazareth amounts to torture and
ill-treatment, and requires the immediate opening of a criminal
investigation to examine the circumstances and conditions of the protesters'
detention at the station - including the investigation and prosecution of
police officers involved in the violence," Adalah attorneys wrote in their
complaint.
Sharaf explained that the witness and victim accounts of police brutality
inside the Israeli police station describe activity deemed torturous under
international law:
What we have seen in the police station is that instead of investigating the
people, the police would beat them up. [The police] deny [the detainees] in
need of medical attention that medical attention and make them sign [false]
affidavits as a condition to get medical attention. When this treatment is
[directed at] detainees, it may amount to torture according to international
law."
Torture is defined under international law as intentionally inflicting
severe pain or suffering in order to obtain a confession or information,
intimidate or coerce the individual, or as punishment for alleged offenses.
Torture is illegal and considered a war crime.
In a statement to MintPress News, Israeli Police said:
We emphasize that an investigation branch officer contacted the director of
detention on behalf of the Public Defender's Office and requested the
presence of defense attorneys at the station, and accordingly, when the
detainees arrived at the station, two defense attorneys were present to
advise them. Unfortunately some of the lawyers complaining about the appeal
were at the entrance to the station, tried to create provocations on the
spot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, they were periodically allowed to enter
the station and tour the facility in order to prove that the detainees were
being treated properly."
The police spokesperson also noted that medical staff was present at the
station and detainees in need of medical care were promptly treated.
Israel's mass-arrest campaign targeting Palestinians
In a move largely seen as squelching Palestinian dissent, Israel Police
launched a mass-arrest campaign in May, targeting Palestinian citizens of
Israel who participated in protests against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh
Jarrah, attacks at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Israel's assault on Gaza.
Israeli police arrested 2,142 individuals and filed 184 indictments during
"Operation Guardian of the Walls" and "Operation Law and Order." According
to Sharaf, more than 150 Palestinians were arrested in Nazareth in May, and
about one in ten were indicted.
Ashraf Mahroum, an attorney representing nine people detained by police in
Nazareth, said his clients and others were charged for protesting illegally,
creating illegal organizations, and assaulting police officers. Maroum's
clients allege police fired rubber bullets at the upper parts of their
bodies during the protests - a direct violation of the low governing use of
rubber bullets. During their detention, officers struck them with batons and
smacked them over the head with guns. Most of his clients' injuries were on
the head and face. Some were forced to sign affidavits stating they won't
disclose what happened to them in order to receive medical treatment.
Evidence of similar police violence against Palestinians appeared in other
cities across 1948-occupied Palestine (modern-day Israel) including in Lydd,
Akka, Yaffa and Haifa, Sharaf said, adding detainees in these localities
arrived in court with visible signs of abuse. Sharaf concluded:
[Adalah] has other testimonies about police brutality in different areas;
some of this brutality was against protesters and some of it has been inside
police stations against detainees. With the systematic ill treatment that we
have witnessed from the 9th of May to the 14th of May, we can assume that
more people have been subject to such kind of treatment."
Israel's expanding history of torture
The Israel Security Agency (ISA) has long used torture as a standard tactic
during interrogations of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.
Until the late 1990s, the ISA was allowed to use "psychological pressure"
and a "moderate degree of physical pressure" in order to "prevent
terrorism," according to 1987 recommendations from a state commission. The
commission's opinion permitted the ISA to use methods of torture in their
interrogations under the "necessity defense" clause found in Israeli penal
law.
The Israeli Supreme Court banned the use of physical methods during
interrogations in 1999 after a series of petitions were filed by human
rights organizations and Palestinians who experienced ISA interrogations.
However, the court ruled the practice of physical pressure could remain in
urgent cases as part of the "ticking bomb" exception under the necessity
defense. This legal loophole has allowed torture and ill treatment to
persist in ISA interrogations, despite the Israeli Justice Ministry having
drafted a law to criminalize torture.
Israel torture
An illustration from a 1991 B'Teslem report detailing torture methods used
by Israeli forces
According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), 1,300
complaints regarding the use of torture against Palestinian citizens in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by the ISA have been submitted to the
Ministry of Justice since 2001. These complaints resulted in only one
criminal investigation and no indictments.
PCATI receives dozens of complaints each year attesting to brutality
occurring during arrest, detention, interrogation and imprisonment of
Palestinians from the OPT. The nonprofit organization estimates 5% to 10% of
these cases amount to instances of severe torture.
Severe interrogations increased sharply in 2020. "In the passing year, more
people were tortured in Israel than in any other year in the past decade,"
PCATI said in their 2020 situation report on torture of Palestinians by
Israeli security forces. While cases of torture are prevalent within the
OPT, Tal Steiner, Director General of PCATI, said 1948-occupied Palestine is
now experiencing an escalation of torture incidents. Steiner told MintPress:
[PCATI] has seen attributes that are usually found in the West Bank
trickling into Israel. There's administrative arrest, prevention of rights
to seek counsel, to receive medical attention - those are things that are
quite unfortunately common in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories
that have now become more evident within Israel proper. This is not
something that's usual or routine within Israel for Israeli citizens -
Palestinian or not. So it's a turn for the worse."
Israel torture
An illustration from a 1991 B'Teslem report detailing torture methods used
by Israeli forces
Steiner attributed this surge within Historic Palestine to a culture of
impunity spurred by Israeli politicians like former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, explaining:
When the police and military forces entered the mixed cities within Israel
to so-call restore the peace, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted
saying, 'Go ahead and do your job and don't worry about any commission of
inquiry.' These types of announcements by the prime minister and other
Israeli leaders can also be a reason why police officers thought they could
get away with it. They can use extreme force toward citizens, demonstrators,
and especially toward people from minority groups, and go unpunished."
"I thought I was going to die"
On May 13, the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, Nazareth resident
Omaiyer Lawabne was out with friends to celebrate. As he approached an ATM
to withdraw money, he saw an officer decked in full riot gear running toward
him. Instinctively, he began running away.
"The cops started throwing grenades at me, and I kept running because I knew
that if I stood still I could be badly wounded by the grenades," Lawabne
said. "While I was still running, one of the policemen raised his hand and
hit me in the left eye, and I fell to the ground."
Police surrounded Lawabne on the pavement, kicking him in the face and head.
One officer pressed his boot into Lawabne's head and shoulder. "I felt
intense pain all over my body, from my head to my legs. One of them started
kicking me in the artery behind the ear," Lawabne said. "At that moment, I
thought I was going to die."
At the police station, Lawabne saw detainees stuffed into a room, resembling
"prisoners of war." They sat on the floor with their legs folded under them
and heads bent. A masked officer paced around the room with a club-like
object in his hand. Any detainee who lifted his head met the full swing of
the officer's bat on their head.
"They pushed me down into a corner and I lowered my head and curled up.
Nevertheless, the same police officer hit me hard on the head with that
object," Lawabne said.
Days after his detention, Lawabne still felt excruciating pain throughout
his body. He couldn't sleep from the dizziness. He couldn't eat without
vomiting. He couldn't speak coherently. He still doesn't understand why he
was arrested when he wasn't participating in any nearby protests.
"It was the first time I had been arrested, an arrest that I believe was
illegal, pointless, and very violent," Lawabne said.
Editor's Note | This article has been updated to reflect a statement by a
spokesperson for the Israeli Police.