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6 hours ago
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Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia
Many days I was tied to a chair in the interrogation room for maybe 15 hours. I was not allowed to sleep or eat or drink. They tied my arms to the chair very painfully and when they were beating me they would put their hands or legs on my chest to bend my back.
After about a month I was transferred to Ofer camp in Ramallah. The whole transfer process was one of the worst things I remember. When you first go into a new prison, as someone from Gaza, you are subjected to a special campaign of torture and humiliation. That day there were four of us doctors – and none of us are young men and it was hard to bear it.
Frankly, no matter how long I talk about what I experienced in detention, it is only a fraction of what truly happened. I am talking about being clubbed, being beaten with rifle butts and being attacked by dogs.
At night I was put back in my cell but they don’t let you sleep ever; the air conditioner is on and they don’t turn the lights off. There are cameras in the cell filming you. It is terrifying. All night you hear the voices of people around you screaming. I saw people who were dying there. Every day is a humiliation, every day is degradation.
Dr Issam Abu Ajwa
In detention you would have to sleep on the floor which they covered with small, sharp rocks with your hands and legs tied and your eyes blindfolded. They would pour cold water on you and put fans on and bring powerful air conditioners. They would play loud music 24 hours a day.
In interrogations it would be dark and my hands and feet would be bound. They made me stand on my tiptoes for two or three hours and [would] then throw me to the floor and spray me with water. Then three or four guards would beat me.
After months in detention, they transferred me to Negev prison in the desert. It was summer and very hot. They locked us inside tents. We had to ask for permission to use the bathroom, but the sick weren’t allowed to go and were told to soil themselves.
We contracted scabies because we hadn’t washed or changed our clothes in six months. Your body felt like it was burning, but they wouldn’t give us treatment.
We could only drink hot water from the pipes once a day. We didn’t have shoes and they would make us stand on the asphalt with bare feet for two or three hours in 37C [99F] heat. The food was just yoghurt and a bit of rice. I lost half my body weight. They never charged me with anything and I didn’t get to see a lawyer during seven months of imprisonment.
Dr Khaled Serr
On 25 March we were in Nasser hospital, which had seen severe destruction after attacks by the Israeli army, when they stormed the hospital. They ordered us to evacuate through loudspeakers mounted on drones. We left the hospital, where Israeli armoured vehicles and soldiers were stationed pointing their rifles and tank cannons at us.
We were ordered to completely remove our clothes and were then taken in a line to a pit that had been prepared in advance next to the hospital. All the medical staff were put in the pit [then] we were thrown into a military vehicle and taken across the border from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
Throughout this period, while we were being transferred, we were given severe, brutal beatings all over our bodies. I suffered bone fractures on my right side, which affected me greatly all the way through the first three or four months of detention. I never got any medical care.
After two or three hours we arrived at the prison. Our names and numbers were taken and we were led, with our eyes covered and our hands chained with metal handcuffs, into Sde Teiman detention camp.
I was taken to an open space surrounded by metal bars, like a warehouse. We were given a mat that was no more than half a centimetre thick and then we had to sit in the same position from 5am until 10pm. It was absolutely forbidden to speak. We were blindfolded the whole time with our hands in metal cuffs.
I was in a state of shock, in complete denial of being inside that prison and tried to avoid anything that would mean a punishment. However, on the third day an Israeli prison repression unit stormed the prison with dogs and batons. We were ordered to lie on the ground. If anyone raised their head they would be subjected to severe beating. I was beaten where I lay and heard the screams of prisoners [who had been] singled out. Many suffered permanent disabilities.
Dr Bassam Miqdad
In Gaza we are used to war but this time it was different. At the hospital [during the war] you would begin to lose your soul because of the horrors we saw every day. Things that are difficult to describe or put into words because they were so awful. Day after day, the exhaustion and the work increased. I was constantly on the edge of breaking down.
I was pulled out of the line at a checkpoint when I was with my family trying to leave Khan Younis, which was under siege. They told me to take off my clothes except my underwear and I left everything else on the ground – my ID, even my socks, and I had to walk barefoot.
They asked me my name and my profession and when I said I was a doctor they handcuffed and blindfolded me. I didn’t know what was happening. All around me I could hear people screaming. Then I began to be beaten by a group of soldiers.
We were all put in a transport vehicle where we were beaten with sticks. They urinated on us. They used curse words that I can’t bear to repeat. In the transport vehicle you are in a pile, people are lying on top of you. We were all still blindfolded and handcuffed. I was told to jump down and I fell and fractured my ankle but I had to get up and walk with this injury with my back tilted back at 90 degrees.
Dr Mahmoud Abu Shehada
All the medical staff were lined up between the administration building and the old Nasser building. They made us take off our clothes. Then we were moved to the maternity building, where they checked our identities. We were handcuffed behind our backs, blindfolded and taken to the ground floor of the building. They humiliated and degraded us and we were subjected to severe beatings. From late Friday night to the early hours of Saturday morning, we were left cold and naked, with cold water thrown on us.
Early in the morning at dawn time on the 17th, we were loaded into large, open trucks and transferred to detention facilities [in Israel]. They threw water on us and beat us badly during this transfer.
We were later transferred to Ofer camp, which consisted of rooms, each housing 15 to 20 detainees. There, we continued to be beaten and humiliated. Groups of soldiers would enter the room wearing masks. They would take our food and water and throw it outside.
I spent almost three months in Ofer. The food they gave us were small pieces of bread with a small amount of yoghurt and a spoon of jam. It was not enough to keep us going.
Dr Said Maarouf
When the war started, I kept working. There were many injuries and disease was widespread but there were very few of us doctors. I was at the Kamal Adwan hospital and stayed there until we received orders from the Israeli army to leave the hospital. I left and went to al-Ahli hospital, which was where I was arrested.
I was arrested at my hospital along with my son, who is a medical student in the first year of university. Right from the beginning we were tortured. For 45 days I was under great oppression and was starved of food in Sde Teiman detention camp. By this point I was exhausted and sick. They didn’t give us any medical treatment. I lost 25 kilos. I couldn’t stand, eat or move.
Dr Saleh Eleiwa
I was arrested at the Netzarim checkpoint and I was held for a total of 138 days. The first two days were spent at the Sde Teiman camp, after which I was transferred to the Ofer camp where I remained for 130 days.
The torture and mistreatment I endured included forced stripping, starvation, solitary confinement and deprivation of basic hygiene rights, such as bathing or changing clothes. We were subjected to daily beatings, denied access to medical treatment and refused necessary medication. Even detainees with chronic illnesses who were taken to see a doctor were often beaten by the doctors themselves. The interrogations were relentless, continuing around the clock.
Dr Ahmad Mhanna
I was taken to a military barracks where I spent 21 days. During this period, they took me to what they called the “Disco” – an interrogation room with deafening music and freezing temperatures. I slept on gravel, wearing only a thin tracksuit. They told me I would be released that day, but instead, I was sent to Naqab prison.
There, the humiliation worsened. They insulted my family and my religion. They used to let the dog drink from a bowl of water and then pour the rest over me. I fell to the ground because my legs were shackled. They laughed and kicked me in the side.
At one point, they forced me to stand for six hours in the cold, arms raised and shackled, before interrogating me. I told them the same thing every time: “I am a doctor. I do not belong to anything else.”
Medical care was nonexistent. If I had a fever at night, they refused to give me a painkiller. Skin diseases were rampant. Fruits and vegetables were almost entirely absent. We were given a quarter of a cucumber or carrot, never more. Every day was a battle against degradation.
Testimony taken from a letter to Mhanna’s family dictated to his lawyer
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, suspects of terrorist activities were arrested. The relevant suspects have been taken for further detention and questioning in Israel. Those who are not involved in terrorist activity are released back to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.”
The IDF said it provided each detainee with suitable clothing, a mattress, regular food and drink, and that they had access to medical care. It also said that handcuffing of detainees was carried out in accordance with IDF policies. It said it was aware of incidents where detainees had died in detention and that investigations were conducted for each of these deaths.
“The IDF acts in accordance with Israeli and international law in order to protect the rights of the detainees held in the detention and questioning facilities,” it said.
