‘Raped by female soldiers’: Palestinian in leaked Sde Teiman photo speaks out

Blindfolded, arms behind his head and standing by the barbed wire fence of the Israeli Sde Teiman detention camp. 

It was one of the first photos leaked from the notorious army base, where thousands of Palestinian prisoners were held without charge and routinely tortured.

The man in the picture, Ibrahim Salem, was released last week after nearly eight months of detention.

He told Middle East Eye that the photo, first published by CNN, was just the tip of the iceberg of his horrific experience in detention, which included rape, electrocution and frequent beatings.

“Most of the prisoners will come out with rectum injuries [caused by the sexual assault],” Salem, 36, told Middle East Eye. 

The prisoners will tell each other it is haemorrhoids, he added, but most are just avoiding admitting they had been raped, sometimes by female soldiers.

In the following eyewitness account, Salem recalls his ordeal, starting from his arrest at a hospital in Gaza until his release. 

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