http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=285082

Palestinian captives ‘tortured and humiliated’ at Israeli army base
By Justin Huggler, outside Ofer, West Bank
15 April 2002

Hundreds of Palestinians have disappeared since Israel began its onslaught in the West Bank less than two weeks ago. Details are only now emerging about what has happened to them, and how they say they have been tortured and humiliated by Israeli forces.

The wife of a man called Hussein has not seen her husband for six days. She said the Israeli army came to their village, Salseed, at 4am. They blindfolded the men and made them stand outside in their night clothes. She has no idea where her husband is.

The answer, for hundreds like her, lies behind the razor wire and lookout posts at Ofer, an Israeli army base that sits in a valley surrounded on three sides by hills, overlooked by the scruffy outskirts of Ramallah.

It appears that many of the disappeared are still alive. But that is where the good news ends. Inside Ofer up to 1,000 Palestinians are detained and have been regularly beaten with wooden batons. They are forced to spend nights sitting in the dirt outside in the cold, in their underwear. They are refused food for days at a time.

This is according to evidence collected by respected Israeli human rights organisations, and interviews The Independent has conducted with released prisoners. Those held in Ofer are not allowed to see lawyers or anyone else from the outside world. Yesterday, the International Red Cross was trying to negotiate access after having an earlier request refused.

The Israelis are opening more centres to hold the huge number of detainees. The Israeli authorities have admitted in an Israeli court that many of the men being held in Ofer are not suspected Palestinian militants, but innocent civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Nour Hamed lives in Beit Rur, a small village close to the forbidding gates of Ofer. Mr Hamed has just been released after 10 days. His family did not know that, while they feared for his safety, he was near by in Ofer. Mr Hamed is a director of Ajaill, a Palestinian radio station in Ramallah. He was detained with 10 of his colleagues, on 31 March, after Israeli forces moved into Ramallah.

“Nine soldiers came into the office and arrested us,” Mr Hamed said. “They searched us and then blindfolded us.

”They made us sit on the ground outside. There were between 300 and 400 of us sitting there waiting to go in and be questioned. There was heavy rain and a cold wind. We spent three days in that situation. We had no food. Every day the soldiers came and hit us very hard with wooden batons.

“When it was my turn to go for questioning they took off my blindfold and took a photo of me holding up a placard with my name on it. They asked me my name and where I worked, the names of my father and brothers. They said to me, ‘You are sons of bitches’. After the last question they made me sit outside on the ground again.”

After three days outside, Mr Hamed says, he and the others were taken to a large room inside one of the buildings. “Every day the soldiers still came and hit us,” he said. “I was lucky, they didn't take me for any more questioning.

”Some they took every day for more questions, and hit them hard. Some of them were badly bruised. I saw one man with his arm broken.“

Another recently released man, Mohammed, said Israeli soldiers told him and 16 others that they would be killed ”in revenge for the Israelis“. He recalled: ”They made us stand in a group and drove an armoured personnel carrier at us. It swerved away at the last minute."

It is impossible to verify the claims, not least because the Israeli authorities are refusing anyone access to Ofer. But many of the details are similar to accounts obtained by respected independent Israeli human rights organisations.

An Israeli soldier inside Ofer told B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, that torture was being used inside the camp and that he had seen captives whose toes had been broken.

Captives can be held without charge or evidence under Israeli military law. A warrant has been issued allowing the authorities to refuse access to lawyers for up to 18 days.