AS ISRAEL BEGINS to grapple with the emerging scandal of how Palestinians are being treated in its prisons, Palestinian men have described in detail their brutal experience of being detained, abused, and, in some cases, tortured in Israeli jails.
“Those 30 days I spent [in prison] were the most difficult and painful moments of my life. We were subjected to torture and relentless beatings throughout our entire detention period,” Mohammad Yahya Al-Louh, a recently-released Palestinian prisoner told The Journal’s reporter in Gaza.
He detailed the beginning of his ordeal: “From the moment we were arrested, our eyes were blindfolded and our hands and feet were shackled. Interrogation and torture sessions started immediately and continued around the clock, including electric shocks.”
Al-Louh said that the Israeli soldiers deliberately targeted prisoners’ backs, spines, and abdomens with weapons and batons. They used electric prods on sensitive areas and inside their mouths. The beatings were so severe that many prisoners had their teeth broken
The conditions in the prison were dire, according to Al-Louh. “All of the prisoners suffered from hunger and thirst due to the severe shortage of food and water,” he explained.
“The torture techniques were inhumane and extremely harsh, without any respite,” he added.
Other detainees have described being subjected to various torture methods. They told The Journal that detainees were placed on the ground with their hands shackled behind their heads, and dogs were set on them to maul their bodies. Prisoners were also placed into deliberately painful positions and tied up so they couldn’t move.
Since the beginning of ground operations in Gaza on 27 October last year after the brutal attack of 7 October, the Israeli army has detained thousands of Palestinians, including elderly people, women and children.
A small number of them have been released to the main hospitals in the south of Gaza through the only crossing that remains open in Gaza, Kerem Shalom, while the fate of the others remains unknown. A number of detainees have given testimonies of systemic torture.
One NGO in Jerusalem spoke with 55 Palestinians who were held in Israeli jails before being released without charge. The NGO said that the way the people were treated amounted to torture.
“All of them again and again, told us the same thing,” says Yuli Novak, the executive director of the NGO.
“Ongoing abuse, daily violence, physical violence and mental violence, humiliation, sleep deprivation, people are starved.”
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture has urged Israel to investigate the allegations of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment against Palestinians in Israeli jails.
The Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajna, who represents a Palestinian government agency with responsibility for the welfare of prisoners in Israeli jails, visited the Ofer prison in Israel and described hearing harrowing testimonies from Gazan detainees being held there. He found that some Palestinian detainees had been sexually assaulted and beaten.
In a press conference in recent weeks describing what he saw and heard, Mahajna said that many Palestinian detainees at the prison are currently suffering from severe physical and psychological problems.
He also noted that there are more than 100 sick and injured detainees without any medical treatment, amid severe overcrowding in the prison cells.
The human rights lawyer described the crowded conditions many prisoners are being detained in: often a concrete room of no more than five square meters which lacks ventilation.The rooms contain iron beds without mattresses or blankets, and each cell holds around 25 detainees, most of whom sleep on the floor.
Kerem Al-Samouni said that the Israeli army arrested him in central Gaza on 16 November last year, weeks after the 7 October attack, along with two of his brothers and his cousin as they tried flee the city to the south to escape the Israeli assault on Gaza. He was detained for several months, he said.
“We were beaten day and night [in the prison],” he told The Journal.
He described how each tent or cell contained 30 prisoners, which meant “diseases spread among the prisoners”. “The food provided to us was very little,” he added. The men were all moved between the cells frequently.
Al-Samouni said that he saw doctors from Gaza detained in the prison. “We saw medical staff inside the prisons, including the director of one hospital in Gaza, as well as others. They were facing the same hard conditions as the rest of us.”
The accounts highlight the severe human rights violations and the inhumane conditions that Palestinian prisoners face in Israeli jails, raising urgent concerns and calls for international intervention.
While the total number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is around 3,400, the number of female prisoners has exceeded 90, and the number of children is about 250 so far. Since 7 October, 14 prisoners have died in the prisons.
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