Former Palestinian detainees detail accounts of abuse and torture while in Israeli custody
Amnesty International has called on Israel to end indefinite 'incommunicado' detentions of Palestinians
Two women and six men walked through Deir al-Balah, Gaza, with tears running down their faces. The crowd rushed toward them, greeting them and hurrying to get them food and water, before they were brought to Al-Aqsa Hospital for a medical check.
The city saw scenes of elation on Thursday, as Israel released eight Palestinians at the Kissufim military checkpoint, east of the city.
Overwhelmed by their emotions, the eight former detainees shed tears as they spoke to the media about their time held in Israeli detention centres. Some limped from the injuries, arms locked as they held each other up.
For Dia Abu Musa and his family, the day came as a welcome surprise, when he found out his mother Fathia was in fact still alive, after she had disappeared. She was held for 45 days after being picked up in the Israeli city of Kfar Saba, where she had been visiting her sister since before the war.
"They said she was shot, but thank God that she was still alive," he told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. "Thank God he made us capable to see her once again."
Fathia said she still doesn't know why she was detained. She and the other released detainees described enduring various forms of mistreatment while in Israeli custody, including being blindfolded most of the day, no access to bathrooms and limited water and food.
"The prisoners want to get out and be free," Fathia said. "They're tired.
She said they received limited food and water while in detention.
Israel has converted three military facilities into detention camps designated for Palestinians from Gaza, since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people. Over 39,000 have died so far in Israel's subsequent military operation in Gaza.
The people held there are typically picked up by Israeli forces during raids, are caught in the middle of fighting between the IDF and Hamas, or detained on suspicion of being involved with Hamas or other militant groups. Many are released just as suddenly as they were picked up — without explanation.
"During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, suspects of terrorist activities were arrested," the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement to CBC. "The military detention facilities are regulated facilities meant for initial questioning."
Detainees are given food and drink regularly, it said, and those found not to be involved in any militant activity are returned to Gaza as soon as possible.
"The IDF protocols are to treat detainees with dignity. Incidents in which the guidelines were not followed will be looked into."
'I was wishing for death'
In June, CBC spoke with a Palestinian man who was detained for 40 days at Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base in the Negev desert, which is also being used as a detention camp during the war.
Fadi Bakr, 26 and a law graduate from the University of Palestine, was searching for food for his wife and kids in Khan Younis on Jan. 5 when he was caught in the crossfires of fighting between Hamas militants and the IDF. He was shot and took refuge in a nearby building, but that ended up being the one the IDF was targeting.
"There was nothing more for me than to pray," he told CBC's El Saife.
Bakr said those hours he spent stuck in the building were the longest of his life. Then, he was arrested.
"[An IDF soldier] stripped me of all my clothes, underwear and everything … and told me to get on my knees," he said. "A soldier came and tied my hands behind me with a plastic tie."
Bakr said the soldiers suspected him of being a Hamas militant, which he denied. Afterward, he said, he was blindfolded and dragged naked behind a pickup truck to an Israeli checkpoint, where he was beaten, then taken to another undisclosed location.
"We were in a 10-metre room, and I was lying on a body that was decomposing," he said. "He [the soldier] cocked his gun and told me, 'If you don't tell me which tunnel you came out from, I will kill you like this body right here.'"
What Bakr described about the rest of the time he was detained included sleep deprivation, being placed in rooms with loud music that he said detainees called the "disco room," electrocution and regular beatings.
"They used the worst kind of torture," he said. "I was wishing for death in a crazy way."
Similar allegations at Sde Teiman
Reports from the New York Times and CNN alleged similar instances of torture in Sde Teiman, the camp at which Bakr was detained. One Israeli whistleblower told CNN the abuse was revenge for "what they [the Palestinians] did on Oct. 7 and punishment for behaviour in the camp."
After over a month in prison, Bakr and six other men were brought onto a bus in the middle of the night and driven to the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The parting words from the Israeli soldier were not to talk about what happened to them to anyone, he said.
They were then untied from their shackles, he said, and told to walk to the crossing, where the Palestine Red Crescent Society and UNRWA would meet them.
Bakr described the moment he was able to call his family to tell them he was OK. "This moment was the best and worst moment," he said. "I was a little emotional.… They had assumed that Fadi died."
Bakr reunited with his family and began their next ordeal: surviving the war.
Amnesty alleges arbitrary detention
In a report published last week, Amnesty International called on Israeli authorities to "end their indefinite, incommunicado detention of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip." The report said the detentions were in "flagrant" violation of international law.
Amnesty cited Israel's unlawful combatants law, which grants the country power to detain anyone in Gaza that it suspects of engaging in hostilities against it, or posing a threat to security. It alleged that Israel uses this law to "arbitrarily" detain Palestinian civilians without due process, and called for it to be repealed, and those detained under it released.
It documented 27 cases of former Palestinian detainees who were held for up to four and a half months without access to a lawyer or contact with their families, in connection with that law.
The organization's report stated that all the released Palestinians it interviewed said Israeli military, intelligence and police forces "subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
"There must be safeguards to prevent indefinite or arbitrary detention or torture and other ill treatment," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.
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With files from Mohamed El Saife