Btselem /25 March 2024

I was arrested on 1 March 2022, when an Israeli military force raided our house and took me to the detention facility in Huwarah, where they held me for eight days. Three days after I was arrested, the Shin Bet (ISA) officer in Huwarah told me a six-month administrative detention order was issued for me. From Huwarah, I was transferred to detention at Megiddo Prison.

Then came 7 October. Starting that same morning, the guards closed the cells and cut the wings off from each other

After six months of detention at Megiddo Prison, I was transferred to the Negev Prison (Ketziot), where I was put in a room with five other inmates. The conditions there were as usual: we went out to the yard from morning until noon, prepared our own food and bought groceries in the canteen.

I was kept in administrative detention for two years in total. Every time the order expired, it was renewed, for different lengths of time. That happened six times. The last time, they renewed the administrative detention for another 80 days, and after that I was released, on 15 March 2024.

The whole time I was in detention, my wife visited me once, when I was in Megiddo Prison. After that I asked her not to visit me anymore, because of how visitors are humiliated by the prison authorities – things like body searches, waiting a long time and so on.

Then came 7 October.

Starting that same morning, the guards closed the cells and cut the wings off from each other. No one was allowed to leave the cell or move between the wings. We knew it was because of the Hamas attack the communities near the Gaza border.

A week later, on 14 October 2023, they started a campaign of revenge against the inmates. It started with all of us being taken out of our cells and made to stand outside while the guards searched them. While we were standing outside, the guards pounced on us and started hitting and kicking us. When the search was over, they put us back in different cells than the ones we were in before.

Every time they took us out, the rooms were searched and we were beaten, kicked and punched by the guards

The switching of cells was repeated. They’d take us out of our rooms about three times a week, on different days. Every time they took us out, the rooms were searched and we were beaten, kicked and punched by the guards.

On 7 October itself, the prison administration cut off the electricity in the cells and wings. It stayed that way until the day I was released.

They also confiscated the inmates’ belongings: kettles, hotplates, clothes. They left us only the clothes we had on.

Until 7 October, there were five inmates in every cell. After that day, they brought in 10 more and crammed 15 of us into one cell.

Some inmates have chronic conditions and need medication. The prison administration used to give them the medication, but after 7 October, they stopped providing it. It was revenge in the form of collective punishment.

The guards started humiliating the inmates and undermining their dignity. When they came to take someone out of a cell, they’d blindfold him and force him to bend over and raise his hands over his head, so he’d walk out hunched over, without seeing anything. Meanwhile, the guards would swear at him.

Until 7 October, the inmates would cook food in the prison kitchen for all the prisoners. After that day, it was forbidden. The prison administration started giving out food that was so bad it was humiliating, and in tiny portions. For example, over an entire day, each person got: seven spoonfuls of rice, one hard-boiled egg or a hotdog, a 50 ml container of yogurt, a tomato or cucumber or green pepper, three spoonfuls of cooked beans or a small plate of lentils, and seven slices of bread. That was supposed to last the whole day. They were punishing us for things we didn’t do.

I lost tens of kilos because of the poor quality and small quantities of food we were given after 7 October

When I was arrested, on 1 March 2022, I weighed 91 kg. When I was released, on 15 March 2024, I weighed myself and was surprised to find out I weighed only 55 kg! I lost tens of kilos because of the poor quality and small quantities of food we were given after 7 October.

After 7 October, we also stopped getting salt and sugar altogether. That ban was meant to harm our health and as far as I know, it’s still in place. When they released me at the Meitar Crossing, south of Hebron, friends were waiting for me on the other side and gave me something sweet to eat. I ate it, and suddenly felt very tired and passed out. I woke up in the government hospital in Ramallah, and it turned out I’d been taken there by ambulance. The doctors told me it happened because I ate sugar after a long time of not having any at all.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 25 March 2024