Soldiers lock a gate at Sde Teiman detention facility after Israeli military police arrived to "investigate" into the abuse of a Palestinian detainee, 29 July 2024 (Photo by Reuters)

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a leading civil rights organization, has accused Israel of carrying out "an organized and systematic practice of sexual torture" against Palestinian detainees from the besieged Gaza Strip.

PCHR said in a new report that its investigators have documented extensive sexual violence against both Palestinian women and men detained by Israeli forces across Gaza over the past two years.

According to PCHR, researchers and lawyers interviewed several Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody, who described repeated incidents of rape, forced stripping, filming of abuse, and sexual assault using objects and dogs, along with other forms of psychological humiliation.

One 42-year-old mother, detained while crossing an Israeli checkpoint in northern Gaza in November 2024, told investigators she endured repeated rape and physical abuse over several days.

"They put me on a metal table, pressed my chest and head against it, cuffed my hands to the end of the bed, and pulled my legs apart forcefully. I felt a penis penetrating my anus and a man raping me. I started screaming, and they beat me on my back and head while I was blindfolded," the Palestinian woman said.

"I could hear a camera so I believe they were filming me. I wished for death every moment," she added.

Another former detainee, a 41-year-old Palestinian man held while displaced at Kamal Adwan Hospital in late 2023, recounted 22 months of sexual torture, including threats to assault his wife.

He told PCHR that a soldier raped him with a wooden stick while he was tied and blindfolded.

The detainee said the pain and terror were so severe that "from sheer anguish I lost consciousness for minutes, until a female officer came and forced them to stop beating me."

PCHR also interviewed an 18-year-old Palestinian who had previously been detained and was arrested again near a humanitarian aid distribution site this year.

He described soldiers forcing him and others to kneel while assaulting them with a bottle. The man added that this was done repeatedly, including in group assaults.

Another man, a 35-year-old father arrested at al-Shifa Hospital in March 2024, said that he was raped by a dog inside the notorious Sde Teiman military camp after weeks of humiliation, stripping, and threats.

He said soldiers brought detainees to an area away from cameras and set dogs on them.

"The dog did it deliberately, knowing exactly what it was doing, and inserted its penis into my anus, while the soldiers kept beating and torturing us and spraying pepper spray in our faces."

The assault left him with a head wound requiring seven stitches, along with bruises, fractures to his limbs and ribs.

"I suffered a severe psychological breakdown and deep humiliation. I lost control because I could never have imagined experiencing such a thing," he said.

The Sde Teiman military detention center came into the limelight after a video leaked in August 2024 showed Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza.

The man was taken to the hospital with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and severe rectal injuries.

At least five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse, causing serious bodily harm, yet none of them were taken into custody or placed under legal restrictions.

Meanwhile, Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, the military advocate general who leaked the footage, has since been detained on allegations of "unlawful disclosure of official information."

PCHR said the accounts "do not reflect isolated incidents but constitute a systematic policy" carried out during Israel`s genocide in Gaza.