By SAM McNEIL and SAMY MAGDY
SDE TEIMAN BASE, Israel (AP) — The Israeli military said Monday it was holding nine soldiers for questioning following allegations of “substantial abuse” of a detainee at a shadowy facility where Israel has held Palestinian prisoners throughout the war in Gaza.
The military did not disclose additional details surrounding the alleged abuse, saying only that its top legal official had launched a probe. An investigation by The Associated Press and reports by rights groups have exposed abysmal conditions at the Sde Teiman facility, the country’s largest detention center.
A report by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, earlier this year said that detainees alleged they were subjected to ill-treatment and abuse while in Israeli custody, without specifying the facility.
The military has generally denied ill-treatment of detainees. Following the accusations of harsh treatment that prompted a court case, Israel said it was transferring the bulk of Palestinian detainees out of Sde Teiman and upgrading it.
Israeli media reported that military police officers who arrived at Sde Teiman in southern Israel to detain the soldiers were met with protests and scuffles. Later, dozens of protesters who had come to show support for the soldiers burst through the facility’s gate, waving Israeli flags and chanting “shame.” The military said it was working to clear the protesters.
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, according to official figures, though hundreds were released after the military determined they were not affiliated with Hamas. Israeli human rights groups say the majority of detainees have at some point passed through Sde Teiman.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said it welcomed the military’s investigation but said its claims are of systemic abuse at the facility and not just one case.
Israel has long been accused of failing to hold its soldiers accountable for crimes committed against Palestinians. The allegations have intensified during the war in Gaza. Israel says its forces act within military and international law and says it independently investigates any alleged abuses.
The detentions of soldiers prompted an outcry among members of Israel’s far-right government, who called the investigation into their conduct an affront to their service.
“Our soldiers are not criminals and this despicable pursuit of our soldiers is unacceptable to me,” Yuli Edelstein, a veteran lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on the platform X.
The detentions came as international mediators are trying to bring Hamas and Israel to agree to a cease-fire deal that would wind down the war in Gaza and free the remaining 110 hostages held there.
Officials from Egypt and Hamas said Monday that mediators were still working to smooth out sticking points.
The officials, who have direct knowledge of the negotiations, said the contentious points include Israeli demands to maintain a presence in a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor, as well as along a highway separating Gaza’s south and north.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media.
They said Israel refuses to leave the area between Egypt and Gaza during the cease-fire. They said Israel has linked its forces’ departure from the border corridor to installing underground sensors and an underground wall to monitor any future efforts by Hamas to build tunnels or smuggle weapons.
Officials in Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Israel says Hamas uses tunnels that pass under the corridor to smuggle weapons, although Egypt denies the allegation and says it destroyed many in an earlier crackdown.
Israel’s military seized control of the Philadelphi corridor in early May along with the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza when it began its invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.
The Egyptian official said no agreement has been reached on the corridor and the reopening of Rafah, adding that direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel were continuing to find a compromise.
The Hamas official, meanwhile, rejected Israel’s demands, including its desire to maintain Israeli troops along the highway halving Gaza, which is meant to vet Palestinians returning to their homes in northern Gaza and weed out any militants.
The Hamas official said the group will hand its written response to mediators Qatar and Egypt in the coming days.
Both officials said Hamas still wants written guarantees from mediators that negotiations will continue during the first phase of the cease-fire to establish a permanent truce.
CIA director William Burns, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani and Egypt’s head of intelligence Abbas Kamel met Sunday with Mossad chief David Barnea in Rome to discuss Israel’s latest demands.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
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Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
