GAZA: When Ibrahim Salem stepped out of the ambulance that brought him and his fellow detainees to the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, he was immediately surrounded by anxious locals.
Their questions were frantic, filled with desperation for news about missing loved ones who had vanished or been captured by Israeli forces during their recent ground invasion of various Gaza regions.
“Have you seen so-and-so? How is he? Did you come across the name of so-and-so?” These were among the urgent questions being asked as news reports revealed that many Palestinian detainees had been tortured and killed in Israeli prisons and camps.
The latest victim was Islam Al-Sarsawi, 42, from Gaza’s Shujaiya neighborhood, who died under torture at the Sdeh Teyman camp following his arrest during the latest raid on Al-Shifa Hospital.
On Thursday, the Israeli authorities released 64 detainees from Gaza, part of the ongoing aggression that began in October of last year. Along with this group, two women from Gaza, who had been
detained while accompanying patients in Israel, were also freed. While 22 of the released detainees went directly to the hospital, the rest dispersed to search for their families.
Salem, recounting his ordeal, described the severe torture inflicted on him by Israeli soldiers: “They tortured me with an electric chair, beat me severely, and broke my ribs,” he revealed, showing scars on his chest as proof.
He recounted that torture sessions would last for days and weeks. During his imprisonment, a fellow detainee died from the abuse, leading to a protest within the prison that was brutally suppressed by guards.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners Society, the number of martyrs from the prisoner movement since 1967 has reached 257, including 20 who have died since the beginning of the current genocidal war. The identities of many others from Gaza remain concealed by the occupation forces.
Salem detailed his experiences after his arrest, explaining that soldie
rs took him to an unfamiliar area where he endured severe torture before being transferred to the Negev desert prison. There, the conditions were harsh: many prisoners suffered from scabies due to filthy, old bedding. “Scabies, hunger, thirst, and no medical care; most have lost half or a third of their weight,” Salem noted.
He further described the inhumane treatment, including the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners and the inadequate food supply. “Small slices of bread, filthy bedding that can’t be washed, no medical care or medicine,” he lamented.
Salem’s ordeal began when Israeli forces arrested him from Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza while he was accompanying his injured children following an attack on his family’s home in December. The bombing had resulted in the killing of his brother Mohamed, 25, his sister Ahlam, 27, her two children Rami, 3, and Mohamed, 5, and left his three children wounded.
“I took my children to the hospital and stayed with them the first day, but the next day, Israel
i soldiers raided the hospital and kidnapped me along with other citizens. I still don’t know the fate of my children,” Salem said.
Upon his release, Salem arrived at the hospital exhausted and emaciated. He sat outside on a bench, surrounded by neighbors and relatives displaced from northern Gaza, who continued to ask him questions. His spirits lifted momentarily when a neighbor contacted his father, Atef, who had refused to evacuate from northern Gaza.
However, his brief joy was shattered when he received a call from his brother Waseem in Turkey, only to learn that his brother Laith had been killed as he attempted to rescue neighbors from an Israeli airstrike.
Laith was killed on December 12, when an Israeli missile struck while he was trying to help those affected by another bombing. Salem had already lost his other brother, Khalil, 31, in an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp on November 2.
As Salem and his companions made their way to an unknown destination, he asked, “Where are we? Where do
we go? I want to return to my children and family in northern Gaza.”
His guides explained that returning to the north was impossible and that they were now in the central part of the strip. They took him to a tent in the Mawasi area west of Khan Younis, a region deemed “safe” by the occupation but which had been subjected to multiple airstrikes, resulting in numerous casualties.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza has left over 130,000 killed and wounded, the majority being children and women. The war has also led to over 10,000 missing persons, amidst widespread destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of many children.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA