VPol
Satellite imagery has confirmed that Israeli occupation forces have demolished the Khiam Torture Center in southern Lebanon, destroying a site that served as a major record of Israeli occupation-era detention practices and torture. ￭ The facility was originally built in 1933 during the French Mandate as military barracks before being transformed in 1985 into a detention and interrogation center operated by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army (SLA) with direct involvement and oversight from Israeli intelligence. ￭ Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of Lebanese men and women were imprisoned there, with former detainees documenting widespread torture and abusive interrogation methods. ￭ Following the liberation of southern Lebanon in 2000, the detention center was turned into a museum preserving testimonies and evidence of the torture system under Israeli occupation. The site, which preserved the memories of South Lebanon through survivors' testimonies and the names of collaborators, served as a lasting record of Israel’s and the SLA history of occupation and subjugation. ￭ In 2006, Israel bombed the site, destroying portions of it; however, it survived until now, when Israel razed it to the ground.
