Palestinian detainees have come forward with harrowing accounts of abuse by Israeli military and prison staff in a new BBC investigation featuring testimonies from former prisoners recently released in Gaza.

The men interviewed were not charged with serious offenses, the Monday report said. While they were accused of having ties to Hamas and interrogated about the whereabouts of hostages and tunnels, there was reportedly no evidence linking them to direct involvement in the October 7, 2023, onslaught.

Most of the incidents were said to have taken place at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, whose staff have been accused of mistreating prisoners in the past.

According to the released prisoners’ testimonies, they were subjected to torture, including “being stripped, blindfolded, cuffed and beaten,” as well as “given electric shocks, menaced by dogs, and denied access to medical care.”

Furthermore, some claimed to have witnessed the deaths of fellow prisoners, along with allegations of sexual abuse and the use of chemicals and fire as tools of torture.

The report also claimed mistreatment by Israeli medical staff, with one former detainee saying he was shackled to a hospital bed and made to wear a diaper instead of being allowed to use the toilet while receiving treatment for injuries sustained at Sde Teiman.

One interviewee claimed to have been subjected to verbal and psychological abuse while being transferred from Sde Teiman to a nearby field hospital.

“They made us listen to a voice recording that said: ‘What you did to our children, we will do to your children,'” he asserted.

In addition to the detainees’ testimonies, the BBC report drew on accounts from a lawyer who met with two of the prisoners during their detention and medical professionals who later treated several of them and shared further details of their condition.

The lawyer described that one prisoner he visited had been “subjected to severe beatings, humiliation, degradation and stripping during his arrest until he was transferred to prison.”

Doctors in Gaza confirmed claims of abuse, according to the report, with one released detainee allegedly returning home with a “chemical burn to the eye” and another with scabies due to lack of proper hygiene.

Though the BBC sent its findings to the Israel Defense Forces, the military did not address any specific allegations outlined in the report, instead stating that it “completely rejects accusations of systematic abuse of detainees.”

The IDF said that it “takes any… actions which contradict its values very seriously… Specific complaints about inappropriate behavior by detention facility staff or insufficient conditions are forwarded for examination by the relevant authorities and are dealt with accordingly. In appropriate cases, disciplinary actions are taken against the staff members of the facility, and criminal investigations are opened.”

Sde Teiman has been a source of controversy in the past, with five reserve soldiers indicted by military prosecutors in February for abusing a Palestinian detainee there.

According to the indictment, the soldiers severely beat and assaulted the prisoner after he was brought to the facility on July 5, 2024, leaving him with severe injuries, including broken ribs and an internal tear in his rectum.

Following their arrest in July and subsequent legal pressure from the High Court, the government reduced the use of restraints at Sde Teiman and confirmed that it was providing food and medical treatment in accordance with the law.

In September 2024, the court said the Gaza war presented “numerous challenges” for the country, including how to imprison the large number of detainees caught by security services, but said that this did not exempt state authorities from adhering to the law.

Several rights groups say they have documented widespread abuse in Israeli detention facilities holding thousands of Palestinians who were rounded up since the Gaza war started with the devastating Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

Conditions in Israeli prisons have worsened since the start of the war, former detainees have told the AP. They described beatings, severe overcrowding, insufficient medical care, scabies outbreaks, and poor sanitary conditions.

Megiddo Prison, a maximum security facility where many Palestinian detainees, including teens, are held without charge, is regarded as one of the harshest, said Naji Abbas, head of the Prisoners and Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

Israel’s prison service said it operates according to the law, and all prisoners are given basic rights.

Last week, an Israeli doctor said that starvation was likely the leading cause of death for a Palestinian teenager who died in an Israeli prison.

Seventeen-year-old Walid Ahmad, who had been held for six months without being charged, suffered from extreme malnutrition, and also showed signs of inflammation of the colon and scabies, said a report written by Dr. Daniel Solomon, who watched the autopsy, conducted by Israeli experts, at the request of the boy’s family.

Ahmad, who was held at the Megiddo Prison, is the youngest Palestinian prisoner to die in an Israeli prison since the start of the Gaza war, according to PHRI, which has documented Palestinian prisoner deaths. He was taken into custody from his home in the West Bank during a pre-dawn raid in September for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers, his family said.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of Solomon’s report from the family. It did not conclude a cause of death but said Ahmad was in a state of extreme weight loss and muscle wasting. It also noted that Ahmad had complained to the prison of inadequate food since at least December, citing reports from the prison medical clinic.