Female Prisoners from Gaza… Doubled Pain Ending in Exile from Their Families
Gaza – Madleen Khalla, Safa – December 18, 2024
“Beatings, shackling, brutal abuse, and relentless oppression… a never-ending psychological and physical war.” This is how the Israeli occupation army treats the female detainees from the Gaza Strip, showing no mercy to them as prisoners who are entitled to rights and humane treatment.
It wasn’t just a simple arrest that would pass unnoticed. It turned into a physical and psychological war lasting over 60 days, aimed at breaking the will of the female detainees from Gaza by all possible means.
Freed detainee Kholoud Hanouna experienced relentless suffering that started from the moment she was arrested at the Baptist (Ahli) Hospital in Gaza City in front of her two daughters and her young son, who was only 10 years old.
Harsh Conditions
Hanouna speaks to the Safa news agency about the ordeal faced by female detainees from Gaza inside the occupation’s prisons. She says, “The treatment was harsh in every sense of the word. The soldiers tried to strip us of our dignity and exploit our vulnerability to force us into confessing crimes we didn’t commit.”
“It wasn’t just about being arrested and exiled from our families; it involved torture, abuse, beatings, and denial of our most basic rights. It reached the point of a psychological and physical war during which soldiers—both male and female—sought to strip us of our humanity and subject us to the harshest forms of torment.”
“There is no stability in the prisons,” she continues. “Being moved from one camp to another is another form of warfare. We had to anticipate the worst each time, with each interrogation session more horrific than the last.”
She explains that the detainees are subjected to searches and forced to strip, their movements restricted, and their hands tied together for hours. On top of that, the provided food is insufficient to satisfy their hunger.
“I spent 60 days in interrogation rooms and military barracks without knowing why I was kept there, away from my family and children,” Hanouna says.
She adds, “The soldiers never miss an opportunity to delight in the suffering of the detainees. They know that being separated from my children is a fire burning my heart, so they tried to exploit me into admitting something I had never done.”
Siege and Terror
Recalling the circumstances of her arrest, Hanouna returns to that day—one she never wants to relive or even remember with her children.
She speaks with pain: “We faced the cold of December, amid fear, terror, and siege under the barrels of Israeli tanks.”
She points out that her family was besieged in their home in the Zaytoun neighborhood under continuous artillery and aerial bombardment around the clock. Any movement could have threatened their lives.
“After the siege and the inability of either civil defense or the Red Cross to reach us, we decided to save our lives and those of our children after 17 members of my family were martyred. We made a collective decision to leave despite the continuous bombardment,” she says.
“At the time of the afternoon prayer, we reached the Baptist Hospital and spent the night in the open, exposed to the biting cold that spared no one, not even the crying children.”
But the suffering did not end there. The moment they believed would be their lifeline turned into a hell that consumed souls and claimed more lives.
With the break of dawn, the thousands who had taken refuge within the hospital’s walls and under its sky were startled by voices giving them ten minutes to surrender and come down into the hospital courtyard, which had been surrounded on all sides.
The Agony of Release
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought I was imagining it, but we really were besieged, and the occupation army was encircling the hospital from everywhere. I hugged my children and we went down to the hospital courtyard, where the men were separated to one side and the women to another,” says Hanouna.
“The Israeli army ordered the men to strip and bring their IDs. As for the women, groups of five were made to climb onto the tank to confirm their identities. My eldest son accompanied his father, while my two daughters and my younger son, who was under ten, stayed with me,” Hanouna recounts.
She lived moments of terror with her children as her turn to be searched approached. “When it was my turn, the soldier ordered me to come forward alone, without my children, unlike the other women.”
“My little boy, who did not understand what the army intended to do, clung to me. I was arrested along with three other women. The soldier pointed his gun at my head, and I thought he would execute me. I began to mutter prayers and remembrances until we were taken in a special vehicle, along with the other women, to an unknown destination.”
After 60 days of interrogation and abuse, Hanouna was released—but the release brought another layer of agony. She was freed in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, while her children and family were in the north. Thus, the suffering of imprisonment and its cruelty was compounded by the torment of being released far from her loved ones.