11/20/2024–|Last updated: 11/20/202409:00 PM (Mecca time)
“We went from torment to torment, from a small prison to a larger prison.” With these words, prisoner Maher here summarizes his suffering in the Israeli occupation prisons after his release on August 20, moving to another stage of oppression and suffering.
Maher’s suffering journey began from the first moment of his arrest in the Al-Sinaa area in Gaza City, after he received a call on July 7 from the Israeli occupation army ordering him to leave his area in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza and go to a safe place.
Arrest and torture
Maher told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “I was displaced to the industrial area, and during the night hours the army stormed the area, besieged it, and arrested all the citizens, after which the men were separated from the women and children.” The detainees were severely beaten before they were transferred to the Netzarim area, where they were detained near grave-like pits, in A scene suggests that they will be buried alive.
He added, “We were loaded into trucks filled with gravel, and they threw us on our stomachs. Then they tied our hands and feet with iron shackles from nine in the evening until nine in the morning. After that, we arrived at Sde Timan prison exhausted. When I arrived at the prison, the soldier grabbed me and pushed me from the top of the stairs, which led to my death.” I was injured, and I did not receive any medical care throughout my captivity.”
He recounts how he was taken for interrogation, and how he spent 4 full days handcuffed and blindfolded in a room known as the “disco,” because loud noises were played that shook the place.
Maher describes the conditions in Sde Teman prison, where he stayed for 14 days, and how the prisoners were searched, beaten with sticks, and electrocuted every two days, and their hands were tied and they sat on their knees from five in the morning until twelve at midnight.
A journey of torment
Maher was then transferred to Ofer Prison, where special forces came and took the prisoners out one by one. During their transfer, they were beaten on their heads and chests all the way until they arrived at the prison.
During the period of imprisonment and the brutal torture it included, the prisoners were They receive one meal a day, are prevented from praying, and are forced to lie down on the ground whenever a soldier enters their cell, all of this without being charged with any crime, or proven guilty of any “crime.”
The injured or those with special needs are not spared this torture, as Maher confirms that the citizens detained from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza and whose limbs are amputated are shackled and are not provided with any treatment in prison.
He spoke bitterly about being deprived of communication with his family. Throughout the period of captivity, he did not know the whereabouts of his son or the fate of his wife, who remained in Gaza. They are now in the north and he is in the south after the Israeli occupation cut off the Gaza Strip through the Netzarim checkpoint.
Violation of rights
Human rights and media reports indicate that Israeli soldiers committed terrible human rights violations against detainees in Sde Teman prison, subjecting them to various types of torture and humiliation.
In December 2023, with the first reports of these violations appearing, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported cases of torture of prisoners in this prison, followed later by other media and human rights reports in the same context, some of which stated that dozens of Palestinian prisoners were killed in these prisons.
Since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza – and specifically since the start of the ground incursion into the Strip – Physicians for Human Rights confirmed – in a statement – that “the Israeli army has arrested thousands of Gazans, including minors, women, the elderly, and dozens of medical staff, and all attempts to determine their whereabouts have been unsuccessful.” “All of them, or to obtain information about their condition and fate, amid the forced disappearance of many of them.”
