Iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns: How Palestinians are tortured in Israeli detention
Men detained by
Israeli forces since the start of the war are returning to Gaza with
harrowing accounts of mock executions, constant beatings and humiliating
mistreatment
Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces since the start of the war in Gaza
have told Middle East Eye how they were physically tortured with dogs
and electricity, subjected to mock executions, and held in humiliating
and degrading conditions.
In testimonies to MEE, one man, who was taken by Israeli forces from a
school in Gaza where he had sought refuge with his family, described
how he had been handcuffed, blindfolded, and detained in a metal cage
for 42 days.
During interrogations, he said he had been given electric shocks, as well as scratched and bitten by army dogs.
Other men also described being electrocuted, attacked by dogs, doused
with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and
subjected to constant loud music.
“They did not spare anyone. There were 14-year-old boys and
80-year-old men,” said one of the men, Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, who
was taken prisoner in Gaza City in December and held for more than 30
days.
As well as three men taken prisoner in Gaza, MEE spoke to a man
detained in a raid in the West Bank city of Qalqilya who said he had
been blindfolded, stripped naked, and hung by his arms during
interrogations in which he was repeatedly beaten and burnt with
cigarettes.
He also described being held for days in freezing conditions in which
he was not allowed to sleep and of a soldier urinating in a bottle and
handing it to him after he had requested water.
All four men described being forced to strip naked and being
constantly beaten and abused by Israeli soldiers during their weeks-long
detentions.
MEE has also spoken to a number of other former detainees who also
described similar experiences to those of the men in this story.
Sexual abuse and beatings: A Palestinian mother's ordeal in Israeli custody
Read More »
Their accounts of torture and abuse follow similar allegations made by human rights monitors.
Israel’s
conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza is already the subject of an
International Court of Justice case in which it stands accused of
genocide and an ongoing war crimes investigation by the International
Criminal Court.
Last week details of an unpublished investigation by Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, alleging abuse of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners detained during the war in Gaza were reported by the New York Times.
Many of those details appear consistent with the testimonies of former detainees who spoke to MEE.
On Thursday, Haaretz reported
that at least 27 detainees from Gaza had died in Israeli military
facilities since the start of the war. It said some of the deaths had
occurred at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel and the
Anatot base in the West Bank.
On Friday, Alice Jill Edwards, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, said
she was investigating allegations of torture and mistreatment of
Palestinian detainees by Israel and was in talks with Israeli
authorities to visit the country on a fact-finding mission.
Ramy Abdu, the chair of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor which has also compiled reports of torture in custody, said the testimonies of Palestinians released from Israeli detention were “deeply disturbing”.
Abdu told MEE: “These testimonies reveal a systematic pattern of
abuse, including forced strip searches, sexual harassment, threats of
rape, severe beatings, dog attacks, and denial of necessities such as
food, water, and access to restroom facilities. These acts not only
inflict physical pain but also leave lasting psychological scars on the
victims.
“The use of such brutal tactics, particularly against vulnerable
groups such as women, children, and the elderly, is reprehensible and
constitutes a gross violation of human dignity and international law.”
Miriam Azem, an advocacy associate at Adalah, a Palestinian human
rights organisation, said that reports of "pervasive torture and
ill-treatment" inflicted on Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody
demanded an immediate international intervention.
"Hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza remain held incommunicado, their
whereabouts unknown. The urgency of the current moment demands not just
attention but immediate and resolute intervention from the international
community. Any failure to intervene poses a grave threat to Palestinian
lives," Azem told MEE.
The Israeli army had not responded to MEE’s request for comment at
the time of publication. It has said in response to allegations
concerning the mistreatment of detainees that such conduct “violates IDF
values and contravenes IDF orders and is therefore absolutely
prohibited”.
It has said its soldiers act “in accordance with Israeli and
international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees”. It
has said every death in Israeli military custody is being investigated,
and that some of those who had died had pre-existing medical conditions
or injuries.
‘They placed me facing the wall on my knees’
Naeem Youssef Salem Abu Al-Hassan, a 19-year-old from Jabalia,
northern Gaza, told MEE he had been detained with other young men aged
18 to 25 after remaining residents were ordered by Israeli forces to
leave the city on 27 December 2023.
By then, he said, he and his extended family had endured weeks of air
strikes, tank attacks, and sniper fire which had destroyed much of the
neighbourhood and killed a number of his relatives.
Soon afterward, Hassan said, Israeli soldiers had asked him to identify two bodies in the street who they said were fighters.
Hassan said he did not know the identities of the bodies and had no connections with fighters.
“They didn’t believe me and insisted that I recognised them otherwise
they would shoot me and drop me next to the bodies. I didn’t know what
to say. Then they placed me facing the wall on my knees.”
Hassan said the soldiers then kicked him and called him a liar. He
was handcuffed, blindfolded, and dragged to a nearby house where other
detainees were also being held.
“One soldier was smoking a cigarette and trying to burn me on my
face. I told him I can’t take it so he started hitting and kicking me,”
he said.
Palestinian men were rounded up and stripped by Israeli forces in Gaza seen in a video released on 7 December (Screengrab/X)
That night, the men were rounded up and taken out to the street
where, Hassan said, they were surrounded by soldiers and tanks. Deep
holes had been dug in the street and a soldier started to push him
towards one of the holes.
“I felt, that’s it, he will definitely kill me now. This will probably be my last breath,” he said.
Instead, the men were loaded onto trucks. They were driven around for
several hours, all the while being cursed, kicked, and beaten by the
soldiers guarding them. Then they were moved to a different vehicle and
driven around some more, still being beaten.
'They unleashed them on us. The dogs would attack us, scratching us
while the commander would continue to beat us with utter brutality'
- Naeem Youssef Salem Abu Al-Hassan
Eventually, they were dropped at an unknown location. Five soldiers
came into the room where they were being held and continued beating
them.
This pattern of being moved around in vehicles between different
locations, all the while being subjected to beatings, continued over
several days.
Finally, the men arrived at a location where they were forced to
kneel on the floor, still restrained with handcuffs and blindfolded.
“We all remained like this for 37 days… almost naked in the
blistering cold, our bodies exhausted, our souls drifting away. The food
was barely enough to keep you alive,” said Hassan.
When the men tried to complain about the conditions of their detention, their captors brought in soldiers with dogs.
“They unleashed them on us. The dogs would attack us, scratching us
while the commander would continue to beat us with utter brutality.”
Every few days the men would be taken for questioning. Hassan said he
was shown images of tunnels and his interrogators would ask him what he
knew about them.
“Whenever I said that I didn’t [know anything] they would slap, punch, hit, and kick me all over my body,” said Hassan.
“The soldiers with their commander would make a lot of noise… so we
were not able to sleep and remained exhausted and completely strained
from fatigue, starvation, and torture.”
One night in the early hours as he tried to rest, Hassan was kicked
awake by a soldier and dragged to a bus with four other men. The bus
took them to Karm Abu Salem, the main crossing between Israel and
southern Gaza, where they were released.
“The commander screamed at us that we should walk quickly, but I
could barely walk [because of] the beating and kneeling and the lack of
food and sleep. The soldiers started running after us to scare us.”
Hassan said the men managed to drag themselves to nearby UN buses that were waiting to collect them.
‘They wanted us to stay between life and death’
Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, 26, told MEE he had been rounded up at
gunpoint by Israeli soldiers on 21 December while sheltering in a school
with his family in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Along with other men, he was forced to strip to his underwear. They
were then taken to a nearby mosque where their hands were tied behind
their backs and they were made to kneel.
“Then they threw us in a truck, where more soldiers and security
forces railed at us with massive beatings and cursing,” recalled Miqdad.
The truck took them to a detention centre where the beatings continued relentlessly.
“They tortured us for hours, spraying us with cold water while we
were almost naked. They were determined to torture us and break us.”
Eventually, one by one the men were taken to an interrogation room where, Miqdad said, the torture got worse.
“The soldiers asked where I was on 7 October and what I did. I told
them I had nothing to do with the events of 7 October but they didn’t
care. They attacked me with even more excessive punches and kicks, and
this time with their weapons as well.”
Bruised and bleeding, the men were put in another truck and taken to a dark, cold room.
“I was naked, cold, beaten, starving, exhausted and completely
drained. If any prisoner fell asleep the soldiers would viciously beat
him on the head or chest to keep him awake. They wanted us to stay
between life and death.”
After a couple of days, the men were put on a bus, this time with
about 50 other prisoners. As the bus drove them to a detention centre in
another area, they were beaten by soldiers, this time armed with iron
bars.
“If anybody would scream in pain, they would beat him even harder,” said Miqdad.
After two weeks in detention, Miqdad said he was allowed to take a shower. But even this risked incurring a humiliating beating.
“The shower time was limited to four minutes. I was afraid to take
off my underwear and never have it back. If you were a second late in
the shower the soldiers would tie you to metal bars and beat you for
four hours. Soldiers and commanders would come and hit you with their
weapons, metal bars, and boots.”
At night, the detainees were forced to sleep naked without any covers
on the floor of what Miqdad said appeared to be an army barracks. Loud
music would play at full volume.
During one interrogation, Miqdad said he was asked why he had
remained in Gaza City, rather than going to the south, as Israel had
told residents to do. He said he told them that he did not have the
money to make the journey.
“They didn’t like my answer. They sent me back to the dark prison
room, blindfolded. We were forbidden from making any movement or
gesture. If we tried to adjust the blindfold to wipe away our tears and
blood the soldiers would go crazy, shouting at us and beating us
insanely.”
Following the interrogation, Miqdad said he was placed in a chair.
“They placed electric bands all over my body and electrocuted me with powerful shocks all the way to my head.”
After several more days of this treatment, Miqdad was told he was
being transferred. He was blindfolded and put on a bus. Many of the
other men on the bus were sick and elderly, he said.
The bus drove for a while and then stopped.
“They kicked us all out and threatened to shoot and kill anyone who
moved from the line, or looked back, or tried to help one another.”
“A young man was totally paralysed from the harsh conditions so I
carried him despite the fact I could barely carry myself. The soldiers
saw me and started yelling and shooting but I did not care, I just kept
walking and didn’t look back. In those moments he was not heavy.”
‘You think you will die a thousand times’
Omar Mahmoud Abdel Qader Samoud had also been forced to seek refuge
in a school with members of his family after their house was destroyed
by an air strike on 14 November.
After several weeks, Israeli soldiers came to the school and detained
Samoud, his wife, and their children including their two-year-old son.
“They handcuffed us and blindfolded us and took us to a nearby hill,” said Samoud.
“Tanks were roaming around us, creating a deadly scene of horror and
fear. In those moments you think you will die a thousand times.”
'The soldiers would kick me on all parts of my body. Imagine yourself
naked, handcuffed on the floor with five or six soldiers kicking you
with their boots, hitting you with weapons and bats'
- Omar Mahmoud Abdel Qader Samoud
Samoud said he remained blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire 42
days of his detention, barely being given enough food to survive.
“The soldiers forced us to kneel for 24 hours. They would storm into
the barracks where we were kept as hostages, make a lot of noise with
their iron bars, kicking and breaking everything.
“The temperature was freezing, as [the cell] was made of iron, very
similar to cages used for animals… The soldiers’ aim was to torture us,
to break us, to show us who is the boss, and that our lives depended on
them.”
Prisoners who raised their heads risked being sent to the “ghost room”, Samoud said.
“You become a ghost, unseen and unheard,” he said. “They tie your
hands and legs, forbid you from going to the bathroom. They deny you
water and food and leave you like this for a few days.”
Another room was known as the “disko”.
“A soldier dragged me on the floor, naked and handcuffed and placed me on a piece of rug,” Samoud recalled.
“The soldiers sprayed freezing cold water on me and placed a fan in
front of me. They would leave me for a few days, without food or water
or the possibility to get up and go to the bathroom. I urinated on
myself and pleaded for mercy but they didn’t care.
“The soldiers would kick me on all parts of my body. Imagine yourself
naked, handcuffed on the floor with five or six soldiers kicking you
with their boots, hitting you with weapons and bats.
“Then they asked me to sit up. How could I possibly sit up? When I
couldn’t follow their orders they would beat me even harder. They
completely smashed me. I thought this nightmare would never end.”
A man awaits treatment at Rafah's al-Najjar hospital after
being returned to Gaza from Israeli detention in December 2023 (Said
Khatib/AFP)
Sometimes soldiers would unleash dogs on the captive men as they were
forced to lie face down on the ground, still handcuffed and
blindfolded.
“The soldiers would close the door and let the dogs torture us for
the next two or three hours,” said Samoud. He said he had also been
subjected to electric shocks.
During interrogations, detainees were restrained in their chairs by
clamps on their arms and their legs. Sometimes these sessions would last
from 9am until midnight, and in one of these Samoud said that his toes
had been broken.
“Part of the torture technique was breaking the clamps while they are
still on your legs. [The interrogator] came to remove them but started
banging on them so fiercely that I cried out in pain. My toes were
breaking but he kept on banging them. The pain was unbearable.
“They left me like that, my toes broken and bloodied for 20 days,
lying around like a rug. I lost over 25 kilos while being held hostage
and I cannot walk because of the torture.”
‘All were brutalised, tortured and humiliated’
Ali Nayef Muhammad Al-Masry, 34, was among a group of men rounded up
during a night raid by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank city of
Qalqilya in January.
Masry, who is from Gaza, and the other men had previously been
working in Israel but had been displaced to Qalqilya when their work
permits were withdrawn at the start of the war.
Following an army raid on the building where they were staying, the
men were blindfolded, handcuffed, and dragged to a space alongside the
fence separating the West Bank from Israel.
“They kept us there for about a month. We were workers but there were
also sick people there, people with cancer, some of them were elderly.
All were brutalised, tortured, and humiliated. There was no regard for
human life,” said Masry.
'When I asked for water, the soldier would laugh, go to the corner, urinate in a plastic bottle, and bring it to me to drink'
- Ali Nayef Muhammad Al-Masry
One day, Masry was among 10 men separated by soldiers from the rest
of the detainees. The men were made to strip naked and kneel by the
fence.
“An army commander came and waged a psychological war against us. He
shouted at his unit, ‘Kill them all, every single one of them.’ Then the
soldiers started shooting and we heard live ammunition all around us. I
had no idea if I was dead or alive.”
The men were then taken to a room for questioning.
“The first question was: ‘Who do you know?’. And he showed me photos
from my neighbourhood. If he didn’t like my answers, he would hang me by
my arms, still handcuffed. My interrogation lasted for 10 days. All
this time, I didn't know when it was day and when it was night. I was
freezing all the time. Naked, freezing, and cuffed.”
Other times, Masry said, his interrogator would burn cigarettes on
his skin and kick him. He was made to sit on a chair that delivered
electric shocks and was prevented from sleeping.
“The soldiers and their commander were monsters. When I asked for
water, the soldier would laugh, go to the corner, urinate in a plastic
bottle, and bring it to me to drink. When I refused, he would drop the
whole thing on me.”
After several weeks, Masry and the other men were handcuffed and
blindfolded, put on an army truck, and driven for six hours to Karm Abu
Salem.
“Before they released us, they undressed us again and took our
clothes. When they dropped us off there were 55 male detainees and six
female detainees. They made us walk north and after walking a long
distance the soldiers started shooting at us.
“Later we learned that the six women had been kidnapped from inside
Gaza and were held hostage for three months. We didn’t know anything
about them.”
Photo: Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with shirtless
Palestinian detainees in the Gaza Strip, 8 December 2023 (Reuters/Yossi
Zeliger)