Btselem /24 March 2024

I live with my wife Ranim, 24, in the center of Burqah and make a living as a plumber.

On Monday, 16 October 2023, at around 3:00 A.M., Ranim and I woke up to loud banging on the door. I quickly ran to open it because I was afraid they would blow it up. As soon as I opened the door, soldiers burst into the house. One of them asked for my name and ordered me to give him my ID card, and another ordered me to give him my phone. I handed over both.

The prison administration was cruel, and we detainees had no rights

Immediately, one of them tied my hands behind my back with zip ties. They also blindfolded me, and a few minutes later, pressed a phone to my ear. On the other end of the line was someone who identified himself as the regional commander. He asked me if I suffer from any illnesses and I told him no. Then he said I was being detained.

Two soldiers grabbed me firmly by my armpits, ordered me to bend my head and hunch over, and walked me about four kilometers until we reached a few jeeps. They put me in one of them, and we drove a few minutes. I recognized that we were in the settlement of Shavei Shomron. They took me to the regional commander, who asked me about the situation in Burqah, and asked who hung up the Hamas flags in town. He also told me that this detention was a continuation of my previous detention; he reminded me that I had been released on that exact date just a year earlier.

They then transferred me to the military prison in Huwarah. I arrived during dawn prayers. I asked someone there where I was, and he said, “Huwarah.” I stayed in a cell until the next morning, and then they transferred me to Petah Tikva with about 10 other detainees from different places. I found out that four of them were from my town, but I only knew one of them.

In Petah Tikva, they interrogated us one by one. Our hands and feet were tied the whole time, and they didn’t give us any food or water. When we asked for some, they refused and said, “We’re at war.”

My interrogation was in the afternoon and lasted only 10 minutes. There was someone in civilian clothes who asked me questions and answered them himself. He asked if I’d thrown stones, and before I could answer, he wrote “No.” Then he asked if I’d thrown Molotov cocktails, and again he wrote “No.” It was written in Arabic. I wanted to read what he wrote, but he said there was no time and told me to sign.

That evening, they transferred us from Petah Tikva to Megiddo Prison. That’s where the problems started. The prison administration was cruel, and we detainees had no rights. As soon as we stepped out of the vehicle that brought us there, they ordered us to stand facing the wall. There were 10 of us — all with our hands and feet tied, and blindfolded. They yelled at us, cursed us, and ordered us to curse Hamas and President Abu Mazen. Someone there asked each of us which organization we belonged to. Those who said Hamas were ordered to curse Hamas, and those who said Fatah were ordered to curse Abu Mazen. When it was my turn, I told him that I wouldn’t curse anyone, so someone said we’d see about that inside. 

They put six detainees in a cell meant for four. There were no blankets, no mattresses, nothing. The room was just walls and concrete

When we entered the prison, they searched and photographed us. The search included a metal detector, and then a full-body strip search. There were 10 detainees in the room and about 10 guards, and they ordered us to strip until we were completely naked, and then they took our clothes. After the search, they returned the clothes in one pile, and we had to rummage through it to find ours. From there, they took us to make “prisoner cards” about 100 meters from where they strip-searched us. Along the way, guards kicked and punched us in the face. They did that to all the detainees.

They then took us to the cells. They put six detainees in a cell meant for four. There were no blankets, no mattresses, nothing. The room was just walls and concrete. I saw the mattresses and blankets at the cell door; they took them out before putting us in. I was wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, and I was cold. I pulled my knees to my chest to try to sleep, but I could only manage to fall asleep for a few minutes at a time, and even then, only out of sheer exhaustion.

The toilet in the cell was clogged. The first time we used it, the water overflowed from the toilet bowl to where we were sitting. We asked the guard to do something about it, but he just said, “Great,” and left. We had no cleaning supplies, either.

We got three meals a day. The food was tasteless, with no salt or seasoning. For breakfast, each of us got just a spoonful of white cheese. Lunch consisted of three spoonfuls of rice or bulgur and a few slices of cucumber, tomato, or shredded cabbage that looked like it had been crushed. Dinner was the same, three spoonfuls of rice or bulgur and an egg, which usually wasn’t fully cooked. Once a week, we got some jam and a spoonful or two of hummus.

The first floor was very dark, and even during the day it felt like night

At first, I didn’t eat because the food was half-cooked, cold, and lacked oil, salt and spices. There were days we didn’t eat, and sometimes we saved the three meals to eat them all at once. By 10:00 P.M. we were hungry again and we went to bed on an empty stomach.

I arrived at Megiddo Prison after the administration confiscated all of the electrical appliances and food items (such as sugar, oil, coffee and tea). When we sat together at night, someone would suddenly say, “Agh, I wish I had a cup of coffee,” and another would say, “Agh, I wish I had a cigarette.” We kept that up until we fell asleep, hungry and depressed.

They moved me from wing to wing and from cell to cell. In one of the cells, they crammed 12 of us into a cell meant for six. The room had six beds, and the rest slept on mattresses on the floor. Each inmate got one light blanket, and we were constantly freezing. When I first arrived at Megiddo, one of the other inmates gave me pants and a shirt. Four days later, I washed them. Just then, the guards searched the room and of course, confiscated the clothes, leaving me with only shorts and a tank top. They didn’t leave anything; each inmate had only the clothes he was wearing. Detainees who were released gave us the extra clothes they had. Some wore layers, because if the guards found clothes in the room, they would confiscate them. I was released in the same clothes I was detained in — shorts and a tank top.

Whenever the guards searched the cell, they turned everything upside down, making a huge mess. For example, they poured out the shampoo and toothpaste, or bleach they brought with them, onto the mattresses. That made some of the beds unusable, so we would put two mattresses together and three of us slept across them. On Sundays, they would hand out shampoo and toothpaste, and the next day they would conduct a search and pour everything onto the mattresses.

During roll call, we had to kneel with our hands on our heads. They counted us three times a day — 5:00 A.M., 10:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M.

The light would only turn on from 6:00 to 10:00 P.M. The first floor was very dark, and even during the day it felt like night. The second floor was slightly better. I was on the second floor in November and December, and then moved to the first floor during January and February.

At the beginning of December 2023, I was in wing 6 when it was raided. A lot of guards entered all the cells, tied our hands, and made us stand facing the wall. They beat us with sticks for a few minutes. I was beaten on my back and shoulders. Then they left the cells, but took the prisoners from one cell to another cell and continued beating them there. I later learned that they broke the ribs of an inmate named ‘Abd a-Rahman al-Bahash from Nablus. After that, he was in terrible pain and his condition grew worse every day. On 1 January 2024, he died. We declared a hunger strike for three days, but they beat us again and we had to give up. I was in cell 4 at the time, but about every two weeks, they moved us from wing to wing and from room to room.

At first, we had no way to get a haircut or trim our nails. At some point in January 2024 they gave us hair clippers, and nail clippers that broke later that month. None of us knew how to use the hair clippers, and my haircut turned out terribly. The other option was to shave our heads completely, but that spread skin diseases. In one of the cells, inmates got scabies because they got their hair cut without disinfecting the clippers.

There was always hot water in the showers, but we could only access them during the yard break. There were only seven showers, and they took 36 of us out together, so not everyone got to shower. We showered every other day. They confiscated all of the towels, so we had to dry off with our clothes.

We participated in our court hearings from the wing, via Zoom. At first, they issued a three-month administrative detention order for me, but on 24 January 2024, nine days after the end of my first administrative detention period, there was another hearing, and they extended my detention for another three months. I was released on 29 February 2024.

On the day of our release, they forced us to sign a statement that we hadn’t been beaten or humiliated. They actually beat us while making us sign it — so much so that I couldn’t fully write my name because the guards were hitting me in the face, neck and back. I stayed silent because I just wanted to get away from them and out of prison.

We were in complete isolation, cut off from the world and unaware of what was happening outside

Throughout the entire period of detention, I didn’t meet with a lawyer. I also didn’t see my parents or other family members, because they canceled visits altogether. We were in complete isolation, cut off from the world and unaware of what was happening outside. We couldn’t follow the news because they took away the TVs and radios. Our only source of information was new detainees. We were mainly interested in hearing if there would be a prisoner exchange deal. We just wanted to escape that hell. All the prisoners’ conversations centered on that.

Palestinian prisoners fought for decades for their rights in prison, and achieved better conditions. Prisoners paid for that in blood. Once the war broke out, all those rights were revoked, and the conditions for prisoners grew very bad.

During my detention I lost 10 kilos; others lost 40. Before prison, I weighed 70 kilos, and now I weigh 60.

When I got out, the first thing I wanted was to get a haircut and trim my beard before meeting my wife and family, because I looked scary with the haircut my cellmate gave me. I was also really looking forward to trimming my nails and showering with soap and shampoo, quietly, without the pressure of other inmates waiting in line to see if they’d get to shower.

In prison, every little detail of your life becomes significant because the guards interfere with everything and control everything. They constantly remind you that you’re a powerless prisoner.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 24 March 2024