Israel is phasing out the use of a military-run detention camp for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war where rights groups alleged there has been abuse of inmates, justice officials said on Wednesday.
State attorneys told the Supreme Court that inmates held at the military-run detention camp at the Sde Teiman site, which was opened after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, would be gradually transported to permanent holding facilities.
The transfers have started and most prisoners would be relocated within a couple of weeks. This would allow conditions to improve in the meantime, they said.
State attorney Aner Helman, responding to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, told the court that 700 inmates had already been moved to Ofer, a military stockade in the West Bank. Another 500 were slated to be transferred in the coming weeks, leaving 200 at Sde Teiman whose future was yet to be decided.
The decision comes in the wake of a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other civil and human rights groups, which CNN adds, drew heavily on a report filed by the TV channel on such prisons.
At a hearing in the Supreme Court, one of the justices reportedly asked the state’s legal team on the manner in which the facilities were being run.
“The question is whether or not the Israeli law for the imprisonment of unlawful combatants applies or not. That you did not answer,” Judge Barak Erez was quoted as saying.
The state attorney sought to dismiss it as “newspaper rumours” and wondered how the hearing was taking place based on petitions filed on the basis of the newspaper reports.
Israel’s military is now investigating the deaths of Palestinians captured during the Gaza war as well as the Sde Teiman facility.
