JERUSALEM — Patients who lay chained and blindfolded on more than a dozen beds inside a white tent in the desert. Surgeries performed without adequate analgesics. Doctors who remain anonymous.
These are some of the conditions at Israel’s only hospital dedicated to treating Palestinians detained by the army in the Gaza Stripthree people who have worked there told The Associated Press, confirming similar accounts from human rights groups.
While Israel says it detains only suspected militants, many patients turned out to be non-combatants captured during raids, held without trial and eventually returned to war-torn Gaza.
eight months later the war between Israel and Hamas, allegations of inhumane treatment at the Sde Teiman military field hospital are on the rise and the Israeli government is under increasing pressure to close it. Human rights groups and other critics say what began as a temporary place to hold and treat militants after Oct. 7 has transformed into a harsh detention center with little accountability.
The military denies allegations of inhumane treatment and says all detainees who need medical care receive it.
The hospital is near the city of Beersheba in southern Israel. It opened next to a detention center on a military base after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 because some civilian hospitals refused to treat wounded militants. Of the three workers interviewed by the AP, two spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared government retaliation and public reprimands.
“The left condemns us because we do not comply with ethical issues,” said Dr. Yoel Donchin, an anesthesiologist who has worked at Sde Teiman hospital since its inception and still works there. “The right condemns us because they think we are criminals for treating terrorists.”
The military said this week it formed a committee to investigate conditions at the detention center, but it was unclear if that included the hospital. Next week Israel’s highest court will hear arguments from human rights groups seeking to shut it down.
Israel has not granted access to the Sde Teiman facilities to journalists or the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Israel has arrested about 4,000 Palestinians since October 7, according to official figures, although approximately 1,500 were freed after the army determined they were not affiliated with Hamas. Israeli human rights groups say most detainees have at some point passed through Sde Teiman, the country’s largest detention center.
Doctors there say they have treated many who appeared to be non-combatants.
“Now we have patients who are not so young, patients with diabetes and high blood pressure,” said Donchin, the anesthesiologist.
A soldier who worked at the hospital said that an elderly man underwent leg surgery without painkillers. “He was screaming and shaking,” the soldier said.
Between medical treatments, the soldier said patients were housed in the detention center, where they were exposed to squalid conditions and their wounds often developed infections. There was a separate area where older people slept on thin mattresses under floodlights, and a putrid smell hung in the air, he said.
The military said in a statement that all those detained are “reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities.” He said they receive checkups upon arrival and are transferred to the hospital when they require more serious treatment.
A medical worker who cared for patients at the center during the winter recounted teaching hospital workers how to wash wounds.
Donchin, who largely defended the center against accusations of mistreatment but criticized some of its practices, said most patients are diapered and not allowed to use the bathroom, have their arms and legs chained and They are blindfolded.
“They have their eyes covered all the time. I don’t know what the security reason is for this,” she said.
The military disputed accounts provided to the AP, saying patients were handcuffed “in cases where the safety risk requires it” and removed when they caused injuries. Patients rarely wear diapers, she said.
Dr. Michael Barilan, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Medicine, who said he had spoken to more than 15 hospital staff, disputed reports of medical negligence. He said doctors are doing their best under difficult circumstances and that the blindfolds stemmed from “(patients’) fear of retaliation against those who care for them.”
Days after October 7, approximately 100 Israelis clashed with police outside one of the country’s main hospitals in response to false rumors that it was treating a militant.
Some hospitals subsequently refused to treat detainees, fearing that doing so could endanger staff and disrupt operations. They were already overwhelmed by people injured during the Hamas attack and expected casualties to increase due to an imminent ground invasion.
When Israel brought dozens of wounded Palestinians to Sde Teiman, it became clear that the facility’s infirmary was not large enough, according to Barilan. An adjacent field hospital was built from scratch.
Israel’s Health Ministry laid out plans for the hospital in a December memo obtained by the AP.
He said patients would be treated handcuffed and blindfolded. Doctors recruited by the military would remain anonymous to protect their “safety, lives and well-being.” The ministry referred all questions to the military when contacted for comment.
Still, one April report of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, based on interviews with hospital workers, said doctors at the center faced “ethical, professional and even emotional anguish.” Barilan said turnover has been high.
Patients with more complicated injuries have been transferred from the field hospital to civilian hospitals, but this has been done covertly to avoid drawing public attention, Barilan said. And the process is tense: The medical worker who spoke to the AP said a detainee with a gunshot wound was prematurely discharged from a civilian hospital in Sde Teiman just hours after being treated, putting his life in danger.
The field hospital is overseen by military and health officials, but Donchin said parts of its operations are managed by KLP, a private logistics and security company whose website says it specializes in “high-risk environments.” The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Because it is not under the same command as the military medical corps, the field hospital is not subject to Israel’s Patient’s Rights Law, according to Physicians for Human Rights in Israel.
A group from the Israeli Medical Association visited the hospital earlier this year, but kept its findings private. The association did not respond to requests for comment.
The military told the AP that 36 people from Gaza have died in Israeli detention centers since Oct. 7, some of them from illnesses or injuries suffered in the war. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has alleged that some died from medical negligence.
Khaled Hammouda, a surgeon from Gaza, spent 22 days in one of Israel’s detention centers. He doesn’t know where they took him because they blindfolded him while they transported him. But he said he recognized a photo of Sde Teiman and said he saw at least one detainee, a prominent Gaza doctor believed to have been there.
Hammouda recalled asking a soldier if a pale 18-year-old who appeared to be suffering from internal bleeding could be taken to a doctor. The soldier took the teen, gave him intravenous fluids for a few hours, and then returned him.
“I told them, ‘He could die,'” Hammouda said. “‘They told me this is the limit.'”
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AP writer Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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