Bteselm /14 June 2024

I am married and have three children, a 10-year-old and twins who are 7. We live in the city of Um al-Fahem. I’m a lawyer and a member of the Um al-Fahem City Council.

On Thursday, 19 October 2023, at around 8:00 P.M., I was at a protest against the attack on Gaza, speaking to the demonstrators through a loudspeaker. Suddenly, several police units raided the protest. I saw officers wearing three different types of uniforms. They threw stun grenades. I heard one of them say, “Khalifah, Khalifah.” He approached me. I held out my hands to show I wasn’t afraid of being arrested, and then I was surprised when he actually detained me and put me in metal handcuffs. They led me to a jeep, where there were 10 other detained demonstrators. On the way to the jeep they hit me, tore my shirt and kicked me. They threw me to the ground, and one of them kneed me in the chest several times. It was very painful. He also hit me hard in the face, and other police officers beat me, too.

I couldn’t walk with my feet tied and had to hop. The police officers took several pictures of me, mocking me and laughing

They put me in the jeep and drove us to the Iron police station. When we got there, they threw me on the floor. There were about 10 other detainees there, including four minors about 16 or 17 years old, but they held me far away from them. The beating continued at the station. They hit me with their hands and sometimes with wooden clubs, and kicked me. They replaced the metal handcuffs with zip ties, which they tightened around my wrists and put on my feet, too. They covered my eyes with the shirt I was wearing. I couldn’t walk with my feet tied and had to hop. The police officers took several pictures of me, mocking me and laughing. From what they said to each other, I understood they were sending the photos to their friends. One of them asked another if I’d resisted arrest, and he told him I hadn’t—that I had just made some movements and shouted in Arabic, “Slaughter the Jews, slaughter the Jews.” They lied and distorted the facts. There were about 20 people there who beat me. They took turns and moved on to beat other detainees, as well. They forced me to kneel for more than three hours and kept threatening to revoke my lawyer’s license.

From there, they took all of us to a police station in Hadera. They didn’t beat us there. They put all the adults in one cell and the minors in another, and they gave us food and water. I asked them to loosen the zip ties because they were hurting my hands, and then a police officer came to me with a knife to cut them from top to bottom. I said I’d get injured that way, and he said, “God willing, you’ll die.” He quickly cut the zip ties with the knife and did injure me, but thankfully it was only a small wound.

I had chest pain, probably from the beating earlier, and I asked to be taken to a hospital. They waited until the next day to take me. At the hospital, a doctor ordered a chest X-ray. While I was waiting for it, a hearing regarding our detention started, so I had to miss the X-ray and attend on Zoom, otherwise, the hearing would have been postponed. I didn’t want it delayed because I thought they might release me, but instead they accused me of inciting to violence and terrorism and identifying with a terrorist organization. Because it was already 4:30 P.M., the hearing stopped before they discussed all the detainees’ cases and was scheduled to continue the next day.

I heard them beat, curse and humiliate other detainees

That same day, they transferred us to Megiddo Prison, where they strip-searched us naked. They didn’t beat me, maybe because they saw I was finished from the previous beatings. I sat there from about midnight to 5:00 A.M. and heard them beat, curse and humiliate other detainees, who screamed and cried. It was very difficult. You sit there not knowing if you’ll be next, unable to do anything. Sometimes, hearing other people getting beaten is harder than being beaten yourself.

They put me in wing 10, where I stayed until 4 January 2024. The conditions in Megiddo were catastrophic. We had no rights, no clean mattresses, pillows, blankets or clothes. We barely got food and water. The cells were dark all day, but in the evening – between 7:00 and 11:00 P.M. – just when we wanted to go to sleep, they’d turn on the lights. It was cold in the cells. Wind came in and sometimes even rain. We barely managed to sleep. They would play loud music at night, the Israeli anthem and sometimes Druze songs. For the first four or five days, we were without shoes and had only the clothes on our backs. We got some clothes from detainees who were released and left them behind for us, but we had to wear them over our clothes, otherwise they were confiscated every time the guards broke into the room. The guards stole items we had already paid for from the canteen and smoked cigarettes next to us, saying they were our cigarettes.

From our cell, we could see guards leading detainees injured in their heads, arms and legs to solitary confinement cells. They were in a pitiful state, and then we heard them being beaten in there.

They put a sheikh (older man) from Hebron in our cell who belongs to one of the political parties in the West Bank and has a TikTok account with more than a million followers. He told me they’d torn out his beard. Both his legs were swollen and one looked very worrying. His wounds were oozing blood and pus, and the young guys in the cell cleaned the floor because of it several times a day. He couldn’t get out of bed for a long time.

Mahmoud al-Khatib from Hebron was also on our wing. He was in a very bad state and tried to commit suicide more than once. There was also Yusef al-Qazaz, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who told me he had been tortured.

After five days, some of the people detained with me at the protest were released, leaving just me and one other person there. He’s still in detention.

They did roll call three times a day, during which we had to kneel by the wall, far from the door, with our hands on our heads. We were supposed to look at the guards once so they could identify us, but besides that, we were forbidden to look them in the eye.

The drinking water came from the bathroom sink. It was murky and tasted bad, but we had to drink it.

The food was terrible and there wasn’t enough of it. We saved what we were given throughout the day and ate it before bed, so we wouldn’t go to sleep hungry. Still, we were never full because it was only enough to survive on, and a lot of it was inedible. It wasn’t cooked properly and had no salt, sugar or spices. When they gave it to us, they pushed it with their feet, making it dirty. The vegetables we got, such as cucumbers and peppers, were moldy. The eggs were blue, and the rice and bulgur were not fit to eat.

On 28 December 2023, I attended a court hearing in person for the first time. It was in Haifa. I spoke about the circumstances of my arrest and asked the judge to use her authority to look into it.

Three days after the hearing, at 7:00 A.M., guards came to take me. When I asked where I was going, they said I was going to see a doctor. It was the first time I was examined since the intake examination at the prison, but 50 days had passed, and I was no longer in pain from the beatings, so it wasn’t relevant.

That day, during the break, one of the guards threatened me that if I mentioned the name of any guard on his shift to the judge or to anyone else, he would punish me. He said there were no laws in the prison except his law. He threatened me in front of other prisoners, saying that when I was released, he would send a special unit to kill me in Um al-Fahem. I told him that wouldn’t be a problem—Um al-Fahem is close to the prison and he was welcome to send them.

Later that day, I was transferred to wing 1 as punishment for mentioning the torture and abuse of the detainees in court. I was specifically punished for mentioning what happened to ‘Abd a-Rahman Mar’i, a detainee from the Salfit area who was held in solitary confinement near the one I was in at the time, along with the lawyer Sari Khuriyeh and someone else I know. I heard him groaning in pain all the time and asking for medical help. After three days, they transferred him to another isolation cell (in a wing known as Tora Bora), and I found out he died there. Sari was also transferred as punishment to solitary confinement near ‘Abd al-Rahman’s cell, after he gave the finger to the judge at a court hearing in Acre.

At some point, they brought us clippers to cut our hair, but not everyone got a haircut because the machine broke.

Occasionally, guards would come into the cell for no reason, pick a detainee, and start beating him

Every time they took us to the court, they beat the other detainees on the bus along the way. They didn’t hit me, perhaps because I’m a lawyer, but the other detainees were constantly beaten in front of me. It was a real journey of suffering. Also, some of the detainees had no shoes and were taken to court barefoot.

Around late December or early January, I saw guards dragging a young guy on a blanket and taking him out of the prison wing. Later, I learned that he was a young man from Nablus, from the al-Bahash family, who was tortured and died after not receiving treatment for two weeks.

The inmates at Megiddo started talking about a strike, and the guards accused me of inciting them. They transferred me to Gilboa Prison as a result.

At Gilboa, 30 of us were taken together to the yard to shower, and were given an hour or less. That wasn’t enough time for everyone, so we had to take turns showering. Each one showered once every two or three days. They gave us a very small amount of shampoo, and only rarely, so we diluted it to make it last for everyone. We didn’t get towels either, so we had to dress while still wet. Most of the time, there wasn’t even toilet paper because we received only two rolls a week for a cell of 10 to 12 detainees. The guards would come to our cells and film us, narrating the video and bragging about the harsh conditions in the prison. The food was a bit better at Gilboa – at least it was cooked – but the portions were still very small. The light was on in the cells 24 hours a day, and if anyone dared turn it off, the guards would come in and beat everyone.

Occasionally, guards would come into the cell for no reason, pick a detainee, and start beating him. Or they would come in to conduct a search, force us to lie face down, handcuff us and leave only one person unrestrained, and then make him crawl and kiss their shoes. If he refused, he was of course beaten.

they came during meal time and dumped the food on us and on the mattresses

One time, they told us to sign a confession stating we’d poured a glass of water out in the yard and that, as a result, we wouldn’t be taken to shower for seven days. We refused, and they punished us – several times, about 20 guards came into the cell shouting, conducted body searches, tied our hands behind our backs and tied our feet, and then threw us forcefully into the yard and searched the room. There was nothing to look for in the cell because it was completely empty. At most, they would find an empty food container we’d kept. Sometimes, they came during meal time and dumped the food on us and on the mattresses. We had no way of cleaning it. They really didn’t let us shower for a week, and then they extended the punishment to 13 days.

On 9 February 2024, I was released under house arrest, which is still ongoing because the hearings in my case are not over. When I was released, I weighed 10-15 kg less than when I went in, and was very weak due to the lack of nutrition and sleep.

I now have to wear an electronic bracelet and am forbidden to go home to Um al-Fahem on the grounds that I incite people in the area. I had to rent a house in Haifa for 3,500 shekels (~970 USD) a month. My wife is my guarantor, so she has to live here with me. My children, who are still in elementary school, have to stay with their uncles during the week to be close to school. Because the house arrest has been prolonged, we arranged for additional guarantors so that my wife can travel between Haifa and Um al-Fahem to be with the kids part of the time. I’m not allowed to work and have very high expenses. I was required to deposit 45,000 shekels (~12,500 USD) in bail, of which I paid 15,000 shekels (~4,150 USD), and my family and friends helped by depositing 5,000 shekels (~1,400 USD) each. My situation is very difficult for all of us.

My young children have suffered a lot. They saw footage of my violent arrest. The police broke into our home and turned everything upside down. Two days after my arrest, masked men fired at our house. My wife and children have dealt, and are still dealing, with very difficult things. When the children are here in Haifa, my wife and I are not allowed to take them outside, so they are also under a kind of house arrest with us, unless a friend comes to take them out. Since my release from prison, there have been threats to revoke my law license, and two hearings have been held on the matter. The electronic bracelet restricts my movement, and I can’t even go to the doctor without special permission. When I submit a request, it takes a very long time to get approval, so I’ve had to take medication based on my own lay opinion. I’m also forbidden from using social media, including WhatsApp.

* Testimony given over the phone to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 14 June 2024