Btselem /29 November 2023

On 27 August 2023, at around 4:00 A.M., about 15 Israeli soldiers raided our home in the western neighborhood of Qabatiyah. They tied my hands, and blindfolded me with a piece of cloth and took me outside. They put me in a military jeep and sat a dog opposite me. The dog terrified me. During the trip, the occupation soldiers hit me on the head and neck. They let me out at the Dotan camp, where I stayed for four hours, then they transferred me to another camp, where I stayed for about two hours. I still don’t know where it was. From there, they took me to the Huwarah camp, where I was held me for eight days. During that time I was taken to the court at Salem, where I was remanded in custody for another eight days.

Muhammad Nazzal’s injuries after his release. Photo courtesy of the witness

After the hearing, I was interrogated by a police interrogator at Salem. He asked me about my work and activities, and said I was suspected of throwing stones and pipe bombs. I told him I don’t do things like that. From Salem, I was taken back to the Huwarah camp, and after eight days I was transferred from there to Megiddo Prison on a bus with other detainees. In prison, one of the officers told me I was in administrative detention for six months.

Until the war started in Gaza, the conditions in prison were reasonable in terms of food, drink, yard time and showers. But after the war broke out, things changed. We weren’t allowed to go out to the yard. They took away the kettle, TV and radios we had in the cell. They also confiscated cigarettes and personal items like clothes. The prison authorities started doing daily searches in the cells. They also cut back on the amount of food, so what we got didn’t match the number of detainees, and the quality was poor.

After hours of driving, Nachshon people beat me again, and also strip-searched me and took photos of me naked

It stayed like that until I was transferred to the Negev Prison (Ketziot) on 3 November 2023. During the transfer, Nachshon unit people beat me and kicked me. When we got there, after hours of driving, Nachshon people beat me again, and also strip-searched me and took photos of me naked. I was very scared, because I heard the screams of other detainees being beaten.

The guards turned very violent after the war broke out. One day, I heard shouts from the inmates in the next cell. Later, I found out that one of them asked a guard if there was a ceasefire or any sort of solution because we weren’t getting any news from the outside, and in response to that question, they beat him to death. The guards simply left him there for half an hour after the assault. His name was Thaer Abu ‘Asab. He was from Qalqiliyah, and he was in prison from 2005.

The rules for roll call also changed completely. Each inmate had to stand, put both hands on his head and bend his neck. One of the guards read out the names over loudspeaker, and each inmate had to answer he was present. Once, after roll call, a week before my release, a guard asked if we were Hamas guys and we told him we were prisoners. The guard told his friends to attack us. They kicked us and hit us with metal batons. Every time I tried to cover my head with my hands, they hit me on the hands as well as the rest of my body. It hurt a lot. The assault went on for a long time. When the guards left our cell, cell 10, we were all sitting on the floor beaten and bruised, and some of us wounded.

Every time I tried to cover my head with my hands, they hit me on the hands as well as the rest of my body

The night after the assault, when I went to the toilet, I passed out and fell on the floor. Other inmates pulled me back to bed. The next day, a female medic or doctor came and checked me, especially my upper body – my back and shoulders and hands. She disinfected my wounds and put iodine on them. She also bandaged my hands and came back every 48 hours to change the bandages. I felt that she was sad about what happened to me. She seemed sad and upset by what the guards did.

After I was attacked, for the rest of my detention, the pain was so bad I could barely use my hands. There was a prisoner from Tulkarm who helped me eat and drink. My whole body hurt, especially when I went to the toilet.

On the evening of 27 November 2023, several masked guards came to the cell and one of them called my name and ordered me to go with them. They didn’t give me any explanation and I was very scared. They took me to a room where there were other young guys, and we waited there for an hour. None of us knew we were about to be released.

Before I was released, a Shin Bet (ISA) officer warned me not to have any celebrations or talk to the media. He said I should keep quiet and threatened that if I didn’t meet those conditions, they would arrest me again

Then they put us in a vehicle that took us to the Ofer camp. The drive took about two hours, and it was only when I got to Ofer that I found out I was about to be released. While we waited at Ofer Prison, we were given clothes (sweatsuits) and shoes and told to put them on. They forced me to give fingerprints, which was hard because of the pain in my hands. Before I was released, a Shin Bet (ISA) officer warned me not to have any celebrations or talk to the media. He said I should keep quiet and threatened that if I didn’t meet those conditions, they would arrest me again. Then they handed us over to the Red Cross people. As soon as I got on the bus, I told one of them that I’d been beaten and my hands hurt. There was a Red Cross doctor there. He changed the bandages on both my hands. I was taken to Ramallah.

When I arrived in Ramallah, my brother Mu’taz and my mother took me to the government hospital in Ramallah. They examined me and took x-rays, and it turned out I had broken fingers in both hands and needed surgery and to have the fingers set. When I finally got home to Qabatiyah, I was sad that I couldn’t hug my father or my friends because of the pain.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 29 November 2023