Btselem / 29 March 2024

I was arrested on 10 February 2003 and sentenced to 22 years in prison on security grounds. The sentence ended on 8 February 2024. During that time, I was transferred between many prisons: Ashkelon (Shikma), Shata, Gilboa, Megiddo, Eshel, Ramon, Keidar, Hadarim and Negev (Ketziot). I saw a lot of things.

Until the war, I was held in tents in the Negev Prison and the conditions were reasonable. After the war broke out, I was transferred with all the other inmates to cells on 15 October 2023. That’s when our ordeal began. We were about 1,050 prisoners belonging to Hamas and Fatah. I was transferred to a wing with about 110 prisoners. That morning, as early as 6:00 A.M., we heard prisoners in other wings shouting and screaming. It sounded like they were being slaughtered! We’d never experienced anything like that before. Inmates on our wing were crying in fear over what might happen to them. Some sat in the corner of the tent, crying.

I heard the guards cursing prisoners and their mothers and sisters. I heard prisoners begging the guards to stop. They shouted over and over “Stop! For God’s sake, stop!”

We’d never experienced anything like that before. Inmates on our wing were crying in fear over what might happen to them. Some sat in the corner of the tent, crying

Three hours after the raid on the other wings began, the guards reached our wing and started clearing it out. They brought in reinforcements from outside the prison (Givati, the Yamam Counterterrorism Unit, the Dror Unit, the Metzada Unit, the District Unit), who raided the wings with firearms. Members of those units took us out of the cells and beat us. They took away all our belongings, including letters from my late mother and documents and articles I was using to study for a master’s degree in prison. They also poured out the food products we had: frying oil, olive oil, spices. They forced us to walk hunched over, as if we were bending down to pick something up from the ground. They didn’t handcuff us. I didn’t understand that at first, but I think they wanted us to resist so they’d have an excuse to attack us.

Sami Khalili at the hospital after his release from prison. Photo courtesy of Khalili

Two members of those forces grabbed my hands from behind and made me run about 50 meters, while a lot of other guards and unit members around us hit us with sticks. I could barely walk. I felt foggy from the beatings.

That lasted until I got to the prisoner transport vehicle (posta). The door of the van was only half open, about 25 centimeters wide. They hurried us in, and every time a prisoner tried to squeeze in through the narrow opening, a guard hit him. I saw the guard hitting the prisoners who got in before me, so I went in shoulders first. That way, when he hit me, at least he didn’t hurt my head.

Some of the prisoners were bleeding from the beating, including an older man from Balata Refugee Camp. He was almost 60 years old and I saw him crying, from the pain and the humiliation and insults directed at him.

The posta fits 25 prisoners on each side, so it can hold about 50 prisoners. But they piled us one on top of the other and crammed almost 100 prisoners in there.

We got to wing C. It was a catastrophe. They made us get out of the posta the same way we went in, through a narrow opening, and then the beating started again, with large wooden clubs. There were a lot of guards there beating us, and they deliberately knocked some prisoners to the ground. Later, on the wing, I met two of the prisoners who were knocked down. There wasn’t a single part of their body that wasn’t bleeding. They were literally bleeding everywhere. There was also one prisoner from Tubas who got his right arm broken. I was last to get out of the posta along with two others. Until then, every time I tried to get out, they picked someone else. When one of the guards signaled me to move forward, I had trouble getting through the opening because I bent over so low according to their instructions. I heard someone say in Hebrew (which I understand very well), “Kill him.” Then they put me back in the posta and all of them beat me with clubs. I tried to protect myself with my hands, and then one of the guards said several times that I was raising my hands because I was going to attack him. I understood that they wanted me to try to hit someone so they could hit me even more, but I was careful not to react in any way.

The beating continued for several minutes, until we got to a waiting room. They put 15 or 16 of us in the room, and we all collapsed on the floor, bleeding. It was very cold in there. Then they called our names one by one, and we had to walk with our hands raised high and our heads down.

We were taken to a room which had a lot of clothes, shoes, rings and watches scattered in it. We were stripped naked and even had to take off our underwear. We were searched with a hand-held metal detector. They forced us to spread our legs and then sit half crouching. Then they started hitting us on our private parts with the detector. They rained blows down on us. Then they ordered us to salute an Israeli flag that was hanging on the wall.

When one of them ordered me to salute the flag, I refused. Then two members of the IRF (Initial Response Force) unit beat me all over my body. One kneed me in the stomach. I fell down and threw up, and then the other kicked me in a private part of my body. I was in terrible pain. A few minutes later, when I was still lying on the floor, someone from the IRF came and asked me what happened to my hand. I told him they did it to me and he said I must have hit a wall. I insisted they did it to me.

When they stopped the beating, I started getting dressed, but one of the guards hit me every time I put on another piece of clothing. When I put the jacket on, he asked if I’d had enough beating.

Then they took me out and walked me towards the cells, about 150 meters. They forced me to keep my head down the whole way, beat me and cursed me. When we got to the cell, there were already 10 inmates inside. I was the last one. I was bleeding from my right hand, which was swollen and I couldn’t move it.

In addition to the hand, I had cracks in two ribs, which showed up in X-rays I had in hospital after I was released. I didn’t get any medical attention in prison, of course. A medic came once, and when the prisoners told him I needed treatment, he called me to the door, took a picture of me and then gave me a paracetamol pill. That was the only time I got any.

We had no clothes other than what we had on, so we couldn’t change or really wash them

I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t sit or sleep because every part of my back hurt. There was a guy from Ramallah in the cell who was also beaten senseless. The rest were in better shape than the two of us.

They crammed 11 of us in a cell meant for four. In it were only mattresses and a blanket for each inmate. Four prisoners slept on beds, and the other seven on the floor. There were none of the things there used to be in other cells I was held in: hotplate, sugar, tea, coffee, cigarettes, cleaning supplies and shampoo, tissue paper, toothpaste, hot water. They closed the canteen so we couldn’t buy anything anymore. They also closed the laundry room and mess hall. We were left with absolutely nothing. After a week, they brought us shampoo: half of a small cup for the whole cell. We showered with one drop each.

The windows had no windowpanes. The prison administration took them down, and it was impossible to close the window. It was very cold. I’d never suffered from such cold before. I had frostbite on my fingers and toes. They were hard as rock, cracked and blue. They’ve gotten a lot better since I was released. 

I had skin diseases, scabies, severe dermatitis. It hurt badly because I got no treatment. I took cold showers to ease the pain, and then I would stay undressed until my body dried because there were no towels. We had no clothes other than what we had on, so we couldn’t change or really wash them. We wore the same clothes all the time. They held a search every day, and if they found another piece of clothing, they confiscated it. They also carried out random searches at night and took anything they found. One prisoner stayed in the same clothes for 51 days. Sometimes, we washed one piece of clothing while wearing the others so we wouldn’t be naked. We often had to wear our clothes wet so they wouldn’t confiscate them. That caused many health problems, such as fungal infections.

Even shaving and getting a haircut was forbidden. Once, in December, they brought us hair clippers, and then they took them away again.

Roll call changed, too: We were forced to kneel with our heads bowed down and our hands on our heads. Anyone who raised their head got beaten up. There were three counts a day. During morning and afternoon roll call, prisoners had to face the wall, and during the evening one, we had face the guards. Every roll call was an opportunity to abuse us. Every roll call, on top of the prison guards, about 30 IRF people would raid the cell. 

We were forced to kneel with our heads bowed down and our hands on our heads. Anyone who raised their head got beaten up

Every time I asked for medication or treatment, I was transferred to another wing as punishment. Sometimes, I spent only four or five days on a wing. Every transfer came with a beating, of course. They’d take me somewhere outside the range of the cameras and beat me there. I was beaten several times outside the infirmary door. But the beatings during the transfer calmed down a bit a few days after Thaer Abu ‘Asab was killed. One time, when I finally made it to the infirmary, the doctor gave me some cream for my skin problems, but not enough for my whole body. I continued to receive it once a week, but the amount was never enough.

Food-wise, we got very little. Three spoons of rice, three to four beans, two slices of cucumber, half a carrot, an egg twice a week, a hotdog three times a week. The amount of food a prisoner received for a whole day wasn’t even enough for even one real meal. We were constantly hungry. The prison administration also forced one of the prisoners to distribute the food on the wing in order to create tension and conflict between us, and there really were a lot of disagreements over the food.

They also took advantage of meetings with lawyers to punish us, for example to confiscate additional clothes we had. A prisoner from Nablus went to meet the lawyer wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and shorts under a long-sleeved shirt and pants, and they confiscated the top layer. He came back to the room in the shorts and t-shirt and suffered from the cold for a long time because he had nothing to put over them.

They also hit prisoners and cursed and humiliated them on the way to meetings with lawyers. Prisoners would forego the meeting just to spare themselves the humiliation, swearing and beating and for their clothes not to be confiscated.

The wing across from us had Hamas prisoners, and I saw guards forcing them to curse themselves, their mothers and sisters, Abu Mazen and Sinwar. One of the guards told us that since the war in Gaza started there was no law, and we were now considered ISIS.

They took everything from us, even the cigarettes. There were products there that the prisoners had already purchased, worth hundreds of thousands of shekels: tons of cigarettes, cleaning supplies, perfume, canned foods of all kinds, pasta, shavers, watches, shoes, etc. I know these things because I served as a prisoners’ representative, and I was involved in all the accounts.

To stop us from sleeping, they played things on loudspeakers for hours: shouting, cursing, all kinds of whistles and other disturbing noises, and the Israeli national anthem. It went on like that until December, and then they stopped. The lights in the cell were on all night until January 2024, and that made it very difficult for us to sleep, too. In January they cut off power to the cells altogether, and it was pretty dark during the day and pitch dark at night.

We only had running water in the cell for one hour a day. We had to fill garbage bags with water so we’d have something to drink the rest of the day. Of course, when they found the bags, they made holes in them.

We were all in bad shape mentally and focused only on survival. We all thought of only one thing – hoping to hear that the war was over and there was a prisoner exchange deal. But we didn’t get any information from the outside world, with no TV, radio or other source of news. When we tried to ask the guards, they beat us, humiliated us and abused us.

I was released at the beginning of February. From 7 October 2023 to then, I lost more than 20kg. After I got out, I had x-rays done at a hospital and they found cracks in two ribs. It also turned out that the cream they gave me in jail for the skin problems I developed there wasn’t right, and I’m still getting treatment.

I was released, but thousands of prisoners were left behind and they are really suffering. This is the worst time in the history of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. The prisoners have no rights. They’ve been stripped of everything, and left completely vulnerable and isolated. Even family visits have been abolished since the beginning of the war. Our isolation was complete.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 29 March 2024