Human Rights organizations around the world marked today (Thursday) the ‘International Day of Identification with victims of torture’, which was created by the UN ten years ago. In Israel, the Israeli Committee against torture held a conference in Tel Aviv, attended by writers, academics and also soldiers who had witnessed the torture of prisoners, in which it presented a new report about torture in Israel.

The report presented at the conference painted a particularly grim picture of the situation in Israel. It reveals that IDF soldiers of varying ranks routinely abuse Palestinians from the moment of their detention until the time of their interrogation by the security forces. The abuse takes the form of beating prisoners, minors too, humiliating and cursing them. Furthermore, the writers of the report determined that the higher ranks of the IDF, the Ministry of Defense and the Law Enforcement system almost entirely disregard this phenomenon.

Among the participants of the conference held this evening by the Israeli committee against torture was Itzhak Ben Mocha, a former fighter with the paratroopers, who participated in arrests made in the Territories and observed abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners. “I participated in many arrests during the course of my service” told Ben Mocha, “and there were always little abuses in the background: hits on the head, pushes. Abuses are not unusual”, he added. “They are always committed when the prisoners are tied and their eyes covered, although they present no danger to anyone.”

Ben Mocha said that on every trip he always had to sit between the prisoner and the soldiers to protect him with his body. “One time we were sent to perform an arrest in Nablus”, he stated. “After the arrest, before the trip, we got into the vehicle and took a nap. Suddenly we were awoken by a loud noise and when we got out we saw the prisoner lying on the ground and bleeding from the head. It turns out that two of the soldiers tied him up, covered his eyes, took a picture with him and then kicked him hard in the head. That was the noise that woke us up. These things occurred in the paratroopers, an elite troop. If it occurs there, it clearly occurs everywhere”, he concluded.

“They treated me like an animal”

Raami Mofid Jumaa, a Palestinian from the West Bank who was arrested in the past by the IDF and experienced a range of abuses could not participate in the conference, as the army did not allow him to get there. However his filmed testimony was shown.

In his testimony Jumaa says: “I was sleeping peacefully and suddenly my mother woke me to say that the army is here. I got up like a wild man. There were soldiers with two dogs. One of them took me to the bathroom and hit the soles of my feet hard. The soldiers said they would destroy the house. I was afraid. And then the captain arrived, he covered my eyes and tied my hands behind my back. They took me to the truck and threw me on the floor, cursed me and a soldier stepped on my head. Every time I complained they hit and cursed me. The soldiers treated me like I was an animal.”

“The experience of pain does not let go”

In the world they marked the day but the Knesset could not find the time (Reuters). The writer Ronit Matalon said at the conference that these were sickening actions. We must eradicate this phenomenon. There is a wall. The wall is not only the institutions: the IDF, the judiciary, the Ministry of Defense, the Prime Minister. The Wall is that the Israeli public does not want to hear. It could be that in the Israeli society that abandons its weakest, the only form of solidarity that remains is the solidarity between abusing victims.”

Dr. David Senesh, who was a prisoner of the Egyptians for 40 days in the Yom Kippur War, told the participants of the conference “the pain of the abused, humiliated and exploited disrupts the values of social order. The victim carries his pain to the end of his days. It never goes away. I was tortured for 40 days as a prisoner of war but the pain has not gone away for almost 40 years.”

Two months ago, the members of the Israeli Committee Against Torture presented the chairman of the Knesset a request to mark the international day against torture. Two weeks ago, the Secretary of the Knesset responded: “Due to the abundance of events at the Knesset, we will not be able to respond on this day.” This is despite the fact that Israel is a signatory to the international convention against torture.

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