Israel Uses Sexualized Torture against Child Prisoners

16-year-old Faris Ibrahim Faris Abu Jabal (L) 17-year-old Mahmoud Hani Mohammad Al-Majayda (C) and Mohammad Nael Khamis Al-Zoghbi, 17, were all tortured by Israel. ( (Photos: Courtesy of the families, via DCI))

As the Western media was obsessing over any claim of minor suffering of Israeli captives, thousands of Palestinians were subject to systematic round-the-clock abuses.

By Robert Inlakesh, Reposted from The Palestine Chronicle, December 11, 2025

Last month, a series of shocking reports of rape and extreme torture were published by human rights groups, only to be ignored by the Western mainstream media. Among the newly released evidence of such horrendous crimes was the case of a 42-year-old Palestinian woman who testified to being brutally raped three times by Israeli soldiers, as documented by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

However, a report that appears to have flown under the radar since its release on November 13, even in the independent media, came from human rights group Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), dealing with the abduction of three Palestinian boys who were seeking aid amidst Gaza’s famine.

Israeli Torture of Palestinian Children

The abduction and imprisonment of children by Israeli occupation forces is by no means a new phenomenon. The practice is routine and has impacted Palestinians as young as 12 years old.

Although the action of violently kidnapping children and imprisoning them without charge is a clear violation of international law, due to the impunity with which the Israeli military has acted for decades, this practice is commonplace. What has been different since October 7, 2023, is the establishment of military torture camps such as Sde Teiman detention facility, where the most infamous cases of gang rape and sexualized torture were committed.

Unlike the Israeli prison system, soldiers and not prison guards staff Sde Teiman and similar facilities, built to keep thousands of civilians from Gaza captive. No one held in these facilities is accused of any alleged crime, and there is almost no way to know how many prisoners are still being held captive. The families of hundreds of captives freed in September, who had been held in Sde Teima,n believed they had been killed.

The recent DCIP report focuses on the cases of three boys, 16-year-old Faris Ibrahim Faris Abu Jabal, Mohammad Nael Khamis al-Zoghbi, and Mahmoud Hani Mohammad al-Majayda, both 17 years old.

The case of Faris is perhaps the most horrifying, leaving him with psychological issues despite his release. On September 11, Faris was abducted while searching for aid near the Morag Corridor.

Upon his capture at gunpoint, the teenager had his hands bound before being subjected to interrogation and severe beatings. The boy was then forced to his hands and knees, a position from which an Israeli soldier “struck my forehead so hard that it split open and required stitches,” he testified.

Faris was then blindfolded and thrown into a hole in the ground, and beaten until the morning. Come the following morning, the boy was transported to Karem Abu Salem crossing and forced to strip naked, before being transported to the Sde Teiman torture center. Initially, the child was held with adults in a cell for four days, before being transferred to a cell for children that caged seven others.

Throughout this process, Faris was beaten, tied to a chair, deprived of water, food, and even prevented from going to the bathroom. “I often lost control of my bladder during the interrogation,” he stated.

After this, Fares recalled being transferred to what is insidiously called the “disco room,” where prisoners are locked inside a cell and subjected to endless hours of loud Hebrew music blasted through large speakers. This technique was infamously used at the Guantanamo Bay facility to psychologically break detainees. Here, it was used against innocent children.

While Faris was inside the room, he noticed a soldier outside the room was playing games on his phone. Faris saw that the soldier would react when he was losing in his game: “In his frustration, he would open the door and unleash a brutal beating on me, striking randomly. I remained in that room until the day’s end, enduring numerous assaults, including having my head slammed against the wall, being kicked, and having my hair pulled.”

Sexualized Torture

Then came a shocking form of psychological abuse. An Israeli soldier showed young Faris a fake, sexualized photo of his mother, lying in a “compromising position” alongside an Israeli soldier. Faris described the incident as follows:

“‘Look at what our soldiers did to your mother,’ the jailer taunted. In the image, my mother was lying next to a soldier. I could see her hair. ‘Do you want to go and see your mother? Our soldiers raped and killed your mother and sisters.’”

Faris described being “suspended in the air for an entire week” following this incident:

“They bound my hands above my head and my legs below, each with a separate cuff, raising me about a meter off the ground… Occasionally, they would strike my legs. I wet myself frequently during that time. They beat me with clubs on my legs and hurled vulgar insults at me, such as son of a bitch and other terms that I prefer not to repeat.”

The DCIP report stated: “Each child interviewed by DCIP after release from Israeli military custody has reported brutal, dehumanizing torture, unsanitary conditions leading to scabies and infectious outbreaks, rotten and meager food, constant beatings and acts of humiliation by Israeli forces, and treatment designed to break their personhood and extract false confessions.”

The other two minors were also subjected to various forms of torture and routine beatings, including using sticks, assaults with dogs, electric shocks, and stun grenades during raids on their cells.

Media Hypocrisy

Despite there being no evidence of torture of Israeli detainees held in Gaza, their cases received round-the-clock coverage in Israeli media, their names plastered across the front pages of major newspapers, and entire investigative reports printed, claiming abuse.

Meanwhile, as the Western media was obsessing over any claim of minor suffering of Israeli captives, thousands of Palestinians were subject to systematic round-the-clock abuses. This includes countless cases of rape and sexualized torture, even carried out against women and children.

Despite this being one of the most horrifying, coordinated torture and mass rape campaigns committed in recent memory, the media and political leaders of the West have decided to ignore it almost entirely.

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.

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