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02-12-2023
GAZA CITY: Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails say that guards carried out abuse and collective punishment in the weeks after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.
They have described being hit with sticks, having muzzled dogs set on them, and their clothes, food and blankets taken away.
One female prisoner has said she was threatened with rape, and that guards twice tear-gassed inmates inside the cells.
Media spoke to six people in total, all of whom said they were beaten before leaving jail.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society says some guards are alleged to have urinated on handcuffed prisoners. And that six prisoners have died in Israeli custody in the past seven weeks.
Israel says all its prisoners are detained according to the law.
Eighteen-year-old Mohammed Nazzal was one of those released by Israel this week, in exchange for Israeli women and children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
He had been held in custody in Nafha Prison without charge since August, and says he does not know why he was arrested.
Mohammed invited me to his home, down a winding alley in the village of Qabatiya near Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The family reception room at the top of the old house was fogged by the smoke of a dozen cigarettes, a cousin circled the visitors with a flask of coffee and a tall tower of tiny paper cups.
Mohammed sat flanked by rows of male relatives, both his hands heavily bandaged, held up in front of him stiffly like a boxer, the tip of his thumbs peeking out.
Ten days ago, he says, Israeli prison guards came into his cell with a microphone and speaker, and tried to provoke the prisoners by clapping and screaming their names.
“When they saw we weren’t reacting,” he says, “they started to beat us.”
“They arranged us so that the elderly prisoners were put in the back and the young in front. They took me and started beating me. I was trying to protect my head, and they were trying to break my legs and my hands.”
The family showed us medical reports and X-rays from Palestinian doctors in Ramallah who examined Mohammed after he was released on Monday.
We showed the X-ray pictures to two doctors in the UK, who confirmed that they showed fractures in both hands. It was no surprise to Mohammed. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
