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Told to Fix Notorious Prison, Israel Just Relocated Alleged Abuses, Detainees Say 

Israeli security personnel stand outside Ofer military prison in the West Bank on Feb. 8, 2025. (AP) 
Israeli security personnel stand outside Ofer military prison in the West Bank on Feb. 8, 2025. (AP) 
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Told to Fix Notorious Prison, Israel Just Relocated Alleged Abuses, Detainees Say 

Israeli security personnel stand outside Ofer military prison in the West Bank on Feb. 8, 2025. (AP) 
Israeli security personnel stand outside Ofer military prison in the West Bank on Feb. 8, 2025. (AP) 

Under pressure from Israel’s top court to improve conditions at a facility notorious for mistreating Palestinians seized in Gaza, the military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened camps.

But abuses at these camps were just as bad, according to Israeli human rights organizations that interviewed dozens of current and former detainees and are now asking the same court to force the military to fix the problem once and for all.

What the detainees’ testimonies show, rights groups say, is that instead of correcting alleged abuses against Palestinians held without charge or trial — including beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and health care -- Israel’s military just shifted where they take place.

"What we’ve seen is the erosion of the basic standards for humane detention," said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked, one of the rights groups petitioning the Israeli government.

Asked for a response, the military said it complies with international law and "completely rejects allegations regarding the systematic abuse of detainees."

The sprawling Ofer Camp and the smaller Anatot Camp, both built in the West Bank, were supposed to resolve problems rights groups documented at a detention center in the Negev desert called Sde Teiman. That site was intended to temporarily hold and treat fighters captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But it morphed into a long-term detention center infamous for brutalizing Palestinians rounded up in Gaza, often without being charged.

Detainees transferred to Ofer and Anatot say conditions there were no better, according to more than 30 who were interviewed by lawyers for Hamoked and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. AP is the first international news organization to report on the affidavits from PHRI.

"They would punish you for anything" said Khaled Alserr, 32, a surgeon from Gaza who spent months at Ofer Camp and agreed to speak about his experiences. He was released after six months without charge.

Alserr said he lost count of the beatings he endured from soldiers after being rounded up in March of last year during a raid at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. "You’d be punished for making eye contact, for asking for medicine, for looking up towards the sky," said Alserr.

Other detainees’ accounts to the rights groups remain anonymous. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed, but their testimonies – given separately – were similar.

The Supreme Court has given the military until the end of March to respond to the alleged abuses at Ofer.

Leaving Sde Teiman

Since the war began, Israel has seized thousands in Gaza that it suspects of links to Hamas. Thousands have also been released, often after months of detention.

Hundreds of detainees were freed during the ceasefire that began in January. But with ground operations recently restarted in Gaza, arrests continue. The military won’t say how many detainees it holds.

After Israel's Supreme Court ordered better treatment at Sde Teiman, the military said in June it was transferring hundreds of detainees, including 500 sent to Ofer.

Ofer was built on an empty lot next to a civilian prison of the same name. Satellite photos from January show a paved, walled compound, with 24 mobile homes that serve as cells.

Anatot, built on a military base in a Jewish settlement, has two barracks, each with room for about 50 people, according to Hamoked.

Under wartime Israeli law, the military can hold Palestinians from Gaza for 45 days without access to the outside world. In practice, many go far longer.

Whenever detainees met with Hamoked lawyers, they were "dragged violently" into a cell — sometimes barefoot and often blindfolded, and their hands and feet remained shackled throughout the meetings, the rights group said in a letter to the military’s advocate general.

"I don’t know where I am," one detainee told a lawyer.

Newly freed Israeli hostages have spoken out about their own harsh conditions in Gaza. Eli Sharabi, who emerged gaunt after 15 months of captivity, told Israel’s Channel 12 news that his captors said hostages’ conditions were influenced by Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Regular beatings

Alserr said he was kept with 21 others from Gaza in a 40-square-meter cell with eight bunk beds. Some slept on the floor on camping mattresses soldiers had punctured so they couldn't inflate, he said. Scabies and lice were rampant. He said he was only allowed outside his cell once a week.

Detainees from Ofer and Anatot said they were regularly beaten with fists and batons. Some said they were kept in handcuffs for months, including while they slept and ate — and unshackled only when allowed to shower once a week.

Three prisoners held in Anatot told the lawyers that they were blindfolded constantly. One Anatot detainee said that soldiers woke them every hour during the night and made them stand for a half-hour.

In response to questions from AP, the military said it was unaware of claims that soldiers woke detainees up. It said detainees have regular shower access and are allowed daily yard time. It said occasional overcrowding meant some detainees were forced to sleep on "mattresses on the floor."

The military said it closed Anatot in early February because it was no longer needed for "short-term incarceration" when other facilities were full. Sde Teiman, which has been upgraded, is still in use.

Nutrition and health care

Alserr said the worst thing about Ofer was medical care. He said guards refused to give him antacids for a chronic ulcer. After 40 days, he felt a rupture. In the truck heading to the hospital, soldiers tied a bag around his head.

"They beat me all the way to the hospital," he said. "At the hospital they refused to remove the bag, even when they were treating me."

The military said all detainees receive checkups and proper medical care. It said "prolonged restraint during detention" was only used in exceptional cases and taking into account the condition of each detainee.

Many detainees complained of hunger. They said they received three meals a day of a few slices of white bread with a cucumber or tomato, and sometimes some chocolate or custard.

That amounts to about 1,000 calories a day, or half what is necessary, said Lihi Joffe, an Israeli pediatric dietician who read some of the Ofer testimonies and called the diet "not humane."

After rights groups complained in November, Joffe said she saw new menus at Ofer with greater variety, including potatoes and falafel — an improvement, she said, but still not enough.

The military said a nutritionist approves detainees' meals, and that they always have access to water.

Punished for seeing a lawyer

Two months into his detention, Alserr had a 5-minute videoconference with a judge, who said he would stay in prison for the foreseeable future.

Such hearings are "systematically" brief, according to Nadia Daqqa, a Hamoked attorney. No lawyers are present and detainees are not allowed to talk, she said.

Several months later, Alserr was allowed to meet with a lawyer. But he said he was forced to kneel in the sun for hours beforehand.

Another detainee told the lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights that he underwent the same punishment. "All the time, he has been threatening to take his own life," the lawyer wrote in notes affixed to the affidavit.

Since his release in September, Alserr has returned to work at the hospital in Gaza.

The memories are still painful, but caring for patients again helps, he said. "I’m starting to forget ... to feel myself again as a human being."

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Gemayel to Asharq Al-Awsat: Khaddam was Assad’s Stick to Apply Pressure

Relations between Gemayel and Khaddam were highly tense (Getty)
Relations between Gemayel and Khaddam were highly tense (Getty)
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Gemayel to Asharq Al-Awsat: Khaddam was Assad’s Stick to Apply Pressure

Relations between Gemayel and Khaddam were highly tense (Getty)
Relations between Gemayel and Khaddam were highly tense (Getty)

Late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was a masterful negotiator, fiercely protective of his image and reputation. He was known for exhausting his guests with lengthy detours into history before addressing the substance of any talks.

Assad had an exceptional ability to restrain his anger, circling around an issue before striking again — often with calculated patience.

He avoided coarse language, allowing resentments to speak for themselves, but he never forgave those he believed had tried to derail his vision. Among them, according to accounts, were Yasser Arafat, Kamal Jumblatt, Bashir Gemayel, Amine Gemayel, and Samir Geagea.

In dealing with rivals and pressuring opponents, Assad often relied on a trusted enforcer: Abdel Halim Khaddam, his long-time foreign minister and later vice president. In the second part of his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel said Khaddam was Assad’s “stick,” used to assert control.

Many Lebanese politicians believed Khaddam’s bluntness was not personal, but rather a reflection of an official mandate from his mentor.

Assad rarely issued direct threats. Instead, he preferred subtle intimidation — as when he told Gemayel that his aides had once suggested blowing up President Anwar Sadat’s plane to prevent him from reaching Jerusalem.

Khaddam, the late Syrian strongman’s long-serving envoy, was known for humiliating both allies and foes who dared defy Damascus’ directives. His tactics were often unsettling — deliberately designed to leave visitors unnerved and pliant by the time they reached Assad’s office.

In a conversation in Paris during his retirement, Khaddam defended his hardline methods, saying they were not meant to insult but to prevent potentially dangerous confrontations. “The aim was to avoid escalation that could lead to security agencies taking over, which might have resulted in worse outcomes,” he said.

In the same meeting, Khaddam accused former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel of obstructing a political solution in Lebanon, calling him “hesitant and suspicious.”

He also acknowledged Assad was caught off guard when the Tripartite Agreement collapsed. The Syrian leader, Khaddam said, had not believed anyone in Lebanon would openly defy Syria — or the other Lebanese factions who had signed the accord.

“President Assad had many cards to play. President Sarkis had none,” recalled former Lebanese Foreign Minister Fouad Boutros, reflecting on the stark imbalance between Syria and Lebanon during Elias Sarkis’s presidency.

Assad, he said, had the power to topple or paralyze the Lebanese government before Sarkis even returned to Beirut. “Sarkis had no leverage over Assad,” Boutros noted. “But while Sarkis often showed flexibility, he would stand firm when asked to compromise Lebanon’s core principles.”

Boutros, who played a key role in Lebanon’s diplomacy during the civil war, said he had to exercise utmost restraint to keep Khaddam — Syria’s often abrasive envoy — from derailing talks with personal attacks or inflammatory language.

The dynamic, he suggested, was not unique to Sarkis. It also echoed the later, uneasy relationship between Gemayel and Assad.

Gemayel recalled a cold and confrontational relationship with Khaddam, describing him as “the stick and the poison” used by Assad to pressure Beirut into submission.

“There was no warmth between us from the beginning,” Gemayel told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Khaddam used underhanded tactics to undermine the presidency and sow division within my team. While President Assad treated me with respect and politeness, he needed someone to apply pressure — and that was Khaddam,” he added.

Gemayel said Khaddam was behind all the pressure campaigns Syria waged against him — all with Assad’s full knowledge. “Assad played the courteous statesman. Khaddam handled the dirty work. Syria wanted me to sign agreements harmful to Lebanon’s interests, and Khaddam was the one tasked with forcing my hand.”

Despite Khaddam’s harsh demeanor, Gemayel said he never allowed him to overstep.

“I kept him in check. He didn’t dare cross the line with me. We were once in a meeting with President Assad, and Khaddam had been spreading ridiculous rumors beforehand. When he spoke up, I turned to Assad and said: ‘Mr. President, we have a problem with Khaddam. Please ask him to stop acting like a spy when dealing with us.’”

Khaddam, Gemayel said, tried to intimidate many Lebanese politicians — but not him.

“He was rude, even insolent to the point of absurdity. But he knew that if he said anything out of line with me, I would respond immediately.”

Assad’s Subtle Control and the Language of Minorities

Assad understood early on the fragility of Lebanon’s sectarian makeup. To him, the country was a meeting place for minorities — one that always needed an external patron to manage its wars and truces. He allowed for limited victories, but never total defeat, ensuring that no side could do without Syria’s oversight.

Assad sought to rule Syria indefinitely, with Lebanon as a backyard extension of his regime. Yet unlike his brother Rifaat, he avoided openly sectarian rhetoric or calls for partition. Rifaat, according to Gemayel, once suggested dividing both Syria and Lebanon along sectarian lines during a conversation with Lebanese leaders Walid Jumblatt and Marwan Hamadeh.

When asked whether he ever felt his dialogue with Assad was, at its core, a conversation between an Alawite and a Maronite, Gemayel replied: “No — that was Rifaat’s language. He used to say minorities must come together and show solidarity. But that narrative was never pushed by President Assad or his inner circle. It was always tailored to serve their own agenda.”

Assad’s political strategy was built on gathering leverage — and minority groups were central to that plan. His ties with Lebanon’s Druze community, and his clash with Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, fit squarely within this framework. Assad relied on Syria’s own Druze population, as well as the Christian minority, to tighten his grip on the country’s diverse communities and align them under the banner of his regime.

“Assad had a firm hold on the minorities,” Gemayel said, adding that “he brought them all together to make them part of the Syrian system.”

Tensions between Syria’s Alawite leadership and the country’s Sunni majority were well known, Gemayel added, particularly through the candid rhetoric of Assad’s brother, Rifaat.

“Rifaat was open about the hostility between Alawites and Sunnis,” Gemayel said. “In his conversations with us, it was clear. But with President Assad, there was no visible sign of that. What lay beneath the surface, only God knows — but in our dealings with him, we never felt it.”

Gemayel Dismisses Reports of a Syria-Lebanon Confederation Proposal

Asked about longstanding claims that former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun had once proposed a confederation between Lebanon and Syria to Hafez al-Assad, Gemayel was quick to reject the idea.

“That’s absolutely not true,” he said. “President Chamoun would never have made such a proposal. A lot of things were said at the time. There were even reports that US envoy Dean Brown had suggested relocating Lebanon’s Christians to California — all of it nonsense, poetic talk with no grounding in reality.”

Gemayel also addressed one of the most controversial moments in US diplomacy during Lebanon’s 1988 presidential crisis: the phrase reportedly used by US envoy Richard Murphy — “Mikhael Daher or chaos.”

Daher, a Christian MP close to Damascus, had been floated as the only candidate acceptable to both Syria and the United States.

But Washington later distanced itself from the deal. The episode, Gemayel said, underscored a period in which American pressure aligned more with Syrian — and by extension, Israeli — interests, leaving Lebanon’s sovereignty hanging in the balance.

Gemayel confirmed that US envoy Richard Murphy did indeed issue the stark ultimatum in 1988. The phrase, which became emblematic of foreign interference in Lebanon’s presidential crisis, reflected what Gemayel described as Washington’s unwillingness to confront Damascus — despite acknowledging its destabilizing role in Lebanon.

“Yes, Murphy said it,” Gemayel affirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The Americans had a problem — they wanted Syria, and they didn’t. They knew Syria was playing a destructive role in Lebanon, but they didn’t want to challenge it. They kept trying to find common ground with Syria, not with us.”

According to Gemayel, the US saw Daher — a respected Christian parliamentarian close to Damascus — as a palatable compromise. “They thought Daher was a respectable figure who might be acceptable to the Lebanese, so they went along with Syria’s choice,” he said.

Washington, he added, had consistently prioritized pragmatism over principle in Lebanon, often aligning with whichever side could deliver results — even if it came at Beirut’s expense.

“It was the same with the May 17 Agreement with Israel,” Gemayel said, referring to the short-lived 1983 accord.

“The US couldn't pressure Israel, so Lebanon had to pay. And they couldn’t pressure Syria either — Syria was stubborn, had resources, and they didn’t want a confrontation. So they kept trying to sell us solutions that weren’t in Lebanon’s interest.”

“The Americans were always looking for the quickest deal,” he added. “They wanted to please both Syria and Israel. With Syria, it was clear — they didn’t want to upset Assad, because they knew who held the real power in Lebanon.”

Gemayel said that while he personally held the reins in decision-making and negotiations with Syria during his time in office, several close advisers and intermediaries played essential roles in laying the groundwork for dialogue with Damascus.

“The relationship and final decisions were in my hands,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“I was the one doing the actual negotiating. But when it came to preparation, the late Jean Obeid played a very valuable role. He was intelligent, committed to Lebanon’s interests, and had close ties with the Syrians. He couldn’t get everything done, but he managed to ease certain issues,” said Gemayel.

Gemayel also credited Eli Salem, another aide, for navigating delicate talks with Syrian officials — particularly with Khaddam.

“Salem had a knack for getting through on specific points,” Gemayel said. “He had good chemistry with Khaddam, and that helped, especially since Khaddam and I didn’t get along.”

One figure who unexpectedly played a constructive role, according to Gemayel, was Brigadier General Jamil al-Sayyed, then an intelligence officer stationed in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

“You may be surprised,” he said, “but Jamil al-Sayyed was very helpful. Whenever I was heading to Damascus, I would stop in the Bekaa to meet him. He gave me very precise insights into what was happening at the Syrian presidential palace and the broader picture in Damascus. He was well-informed, sincere, and provided intelligence that wasn’t widely available — information that truly benefited Lebanon.”

Asked whether Syria was uneasy about the role of veteran journalist and diplomat Ghassan Tueni in his administration, Gemayel said the Syrians had little affection for him.

“There was never any warmth toward Ghassan,” he said. “He came with me to Syria just once, and it was clear there was tension. Whenever he was present, things got heated. Ghassan and Khaddam were like a ping-pong match — constantly hitting the ball back and forth.”

The friction, Gemayel explained, stemmed in large part from Tueni’s association with An-Nahar, the Beirut daily he helped lead, which often published sharp criticism of Syria.

“Syria never appreciated An-Nahar,” Gemayel said. “Even if Ghassan tried to distance himself from specific articles, the content was out there for everyone to see — and the Syrians didn’t forget it.”