Gaza detainees routinely losing limbs because of handcuffs: Israeli doctor

 

Aljazeera

An Israeli doctor at a field hospital within a detention centre holding hundreds of Palestinians warned conditions there are catastrophic and in gross violation of Israeli law, reports Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

In a letter to senior Israeli officials, the doctor noted detainees at the Sde Teiman detention centre, near the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva, are shackled by all four limbs 24 hours a day, causing severe injuries to their hands and legs that often require amputation.

In addition, detainees are regularly blindfolded, fed only through a straw, denied toilet access, and undergo major surgeries without proper medical care, the unnamed doctor said in the letter cited by Haaretz.

“The facilities’ operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law,” it said.

“This makes all of us – the medical teams and you, those in charge of us in the health and defence ministries, complicit in the violation of Israeli law. And perhaps worse for me as a doctor, in the violation of my basic commitment to patients, wherever they are, as I swore when I graduated 20 years ago.”