![People attend a protest holding the photographs of prisoners in Israeli prisons and Palestinian flags during "17 April Palestinian Prisoners' Day" in Ramallah, West Bank on April 17, 2024. [Issam Rimawi - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AA-20240417-34292355-34292342-THE_PALESTINIAN_PRISONERS_DAY_IN_RAMALLAH.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Israel’s military court has extended the house arrest of soldiers accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee until 4 September, but will allow the defence to hold a hearing on Sunday to request an alternative to detention, the military said on Thursday, Reuters reports.
It specified such an alternative could include ‘a place of work and suitable supervisors’.
The soldiers have been accused of sexually abusing a member of an elite Hamas unit at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert in southern Israel, according to Israeli press reports.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture has said the alleged sexual abuse case is “particularly gruesome” and called on Israel’s civilian courts to investigate and hold the perpetrators to account.
The UN has received multiple reports of alleged torture against Palestinians detained since 7 October, 2023, when Hamas-led fighters stormed Israel in a shock assault that killed some 1,200 people.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the 10 months of fighting that have followed, according to health officials in the Palestinian enclave.
READ: UN expert condemns alleged sexual assault of Palestinian in Israel custody