Released Palestinian prisoners recount torture in Israeli jails

Palestinians from Khan Younis kept by Israeli troops and released in Rafah after weeks have recounted their suffering due to inhuman treatment and abuse at the hands of the regime’s jailers.

The Palestinians displayed their injuries at a hospital in Rafah on Thursday. They suffered as a result of beatings by the Israeli forces.

The Palestinians were held without any charge. Arbitrary detention is used by Israel as a tool to persecute the Palestinians.

The Gaza crossings authority said 114 people, including four women, were released through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Thursday.

Khaled al-Nabrisse, 48, a resident of southern Khan Younis, was hit in the neck. He was wearing a neck brace. Palestinians have been “tortured relentlessly,” he said. “During the first 72 hours, drinking, eating or using the restroom was banned, and we were handcuffed and blindfolded,” Nabrisse said.

“The situation was really tough and we suffered torture like we never saw before.”

Nabrisse said the regime’s troops also used dogs to intimidate them.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the released Palestinians included Mohammed al-Ran, head of the surgery department at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. Ran was taken by the Israeli military when they stormed the hospital two months ago, the ministry said.

Abu Khamis, from the Bureij refugee camp, said he had to undergo “torture, hits and insults” while he was held by the Israeli military. “As you see, these (wounds) happened in prison. My hands were hurt and are going to be treated,” said the 50-year-old, with a blanket around his shoulders.

Another person released on Thursday was lying on a trolley struggling to even lift his head, a black zip tied around one of his wrists.

Harrowing testimonies by the released Palestinians as well as human rights lawyers, and several pieces of video footage illustrate some of the worst forms of torture and ill-treatment by the Israeli forces since October 7.

Similar accounts of torture have already been documented from decades of Israeli hostility across the occupied West Bank. 

The United Nations human rights representative in the Palestinian territories told reporters last month of the “horrific” conditions the Palestinians kept by the regime face.

Ajith Sunghay said the Palestinians held by Israel “reported being blindfolded for long periods – some of them for several consecutive days.” Sunghay said he was unable to give an exact figure of the number of the Palestinians the regime is holding but it was “believed to number in the thousands.”