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A 33-year-old father of three from Beit Lahia, he spoke about the displacement, bombing, and brutal abuse he endured during his detention by Israel, as well as the destruction and hunger he experienced until the war broke out. I lived with my wife and our three children, Ahlam (7 years old), Amira (5 years old), and Ali (3 years old), in a three-story building in the Beit Lahia project, near Kamal Adwan Hospital. I graduated from the Faculty of Law at Al-Ummah University in Al-Zahraa City in Gaza in 2015, but I did not work as a lawyer due to the 17-year blockade imposed by Israel on the Strip, and there were no job opportunities. I worked in various fields. When the war of extermination began, in early October 2023, Israel launched intensive raids on homes, over the heads of their residents, especially in the northern Gaza Strip. Despite everything, we decided to stay in our home. But in November 2023, the bombing intensified, and the Israeli army began shooting at everything in its path. We saw the tanks advancing on our area and realized we had to leave. We fled to my cousin's house in Jabalia refugee camp and stayed there for a week. When the ceasefire went into effect on November 20, 2023, we returned to our home. But the shelling resumed ten days later, and the army imposed a siege on the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcing us to flee again. This time, we moved to Halima al-Sa'diya School in the al-Nazla area of Jabalia, which had been converted into a camp for displaced persons. We stayed there for 21 days. During that time, the army fired rockets at the school, killing about 15 people, most of them children. My daughter Ahlam sustained minor shrapnel injuries to her head. We were lucky she wasn't killed. We had to move again, this time to the al-Sidra area in the al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, where we stayed for two months in the home of relatives. We then moved to Zahrat al-Mada'in School in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City, and stayed there for a month. In all these places, we suffered from a lack of food and water, and moving from one place to another was extremely difficult. Throughout this time, we constantly heard explosions and knew that people were being killed even in schools and areas designated as "safe." Eventually, we returned to our home in the Beit Lahia project. On the evening of Tuesday, October 29, 2024, I witnessed one of the most horrific massacres of this war. The army bombed the five-story home of the Abu Nasr family, which housed about 200 residents and displaced persons. The house was destroyed with everyone inside. We rescued the wounded and recovered the bodies. Some of the bodies were scattered on the roofs of neighboring houses, while others were completely burned. There were no ambulances or rescue teams. We buried the dead in a mass grave in the Beit Lahia market. Most of the bodies were mutilated. One woman was trapped under a concrete beam. At some point, we had to stop the rescue operations because drones were shooting live ammunition and dropping bombs. I was slightly injured. We decided to spread out our family so that it wouldn't be completely wiped out in another attack. My wife, children, and the rest of my family moved to an abandoned house in the same area. During that time, we constantly heard huge explosions and the walls of houses collapsed. I saw dogs and cats devouring corpses. I tried to save the hand of one of the dead from a dog's mouth, but I couldn't. The drones were shooting and dropping bombs. There was artillery shelling every night. We slept next to the stairwell, the safest place in the house. Three shells fell on the house we were in: one in the kitchen and two in the living room. On November 4, 2024, I went to have coffee at my friend and neighbor, Mohammed Amin. We were sitting on the roof when, suddenly, we heard a loud explosion. I ran to my family. I found them all alive. They had sustained minor injuries from the shelling. Moments later, Mohammed's house was also shelled. He, his wife, and his daughter disappeared. Their bodies were never found. Neighbors were also injured. We took them to Kamal Adwan Hospital. The next morning, Tuesday, November 5, 2024, I decided to flee again with my entire family from the northern Gaza Strip to Gaza City. We took what we could carry and took the road the Israeli army had allowed us to use. We passed through Zayed Square, then to Hamoudeh Station, and then to the military checkpoint east of Jabalia refugee camp, which we arrived at around noon. There, soldiers called me over and ordered me to approach them. They ordered me to undress, and I had to do it in front of my children and wife. It was a very difficult situation. My daughter Ahlam ran toward me as I was undressing and clung to me. One of the soldiers ordered me to call my wife to take our daughter or they would arrest me and her. My wife came and took Ahlam, who was screaming, "I want my father! I want my father!" Everyone around us cried for her and for me. I was left completely naked. The soldiers stopped me, blindfolded me, and gave me a white overall to wear. They tied my hands behind my back with plastic bandages and tied them tightly, then tied my legs as well. Then they took me into a dark room at the checkpoint. Despite the darkness, I could see that the room was full of detainees. The soldiers pounced on us and beat us with batons. I screamed in pain from the blows and the binding of my hands. Every time I tried to protect myself from the blows with my hands, the bindings hurt more. The soldiers poured cold water on us and cursed us and called us names: “You faggot, you elite, you shit, you stinking…” “We will take you to hell.” They would ask us, “What is your name?” and force us to answer, “My name is faggot.” They asked our mothers’ names, and when we answered, they said they would bring them here and rape them. The same thing happened with our wives’ names. They told me my wife was in the next room and that they were going to rape her. They held me in that room for 16 hours. Then they dragged us and threw us into a truck, which took us without us knowing where. When I managed to move the blindfold over my eyes a little, I saw that we were heading towards Beit Hanoun. Indeed, after we arrived and were taken down, detainees who were there told us that we were in a place called Al-Hofra, near the city of Sderot, northeast of Beit Hanoun. There, they took us down to a place with sharp protrusions on the floor that caused wounds in my legs. Then some female soldiers came carrying plastic batons and began beating us. After about an hour, someone they said was a doctor came. He looked at the wrists of everyone who said they were bleeding from there, including me. He removed the plastic handcuffs and replaced them with looser ones. We asked for water to drink, but instead of water, they brought a little water in a spray bottle and ordered us to open our mouths and spray some water into it, which I believe was contaminated. The next morning, around 7:00, some soldiers came and took me into a room and conducted a body search. One of them was wearing gloves, inserted his finger into my anus, then removed my plastic handcuffs and handcuffed my hands and feet with metal handcuffs. He handcuffed my hands behind my back. Then they put me and a group of other detainees in a car and drove off. During the journey, the soldiers assaulted me with electric batons. They focused their beatings on the head. At the end of the journey, they dropped us off at a prison I later learned was called Sde Teiman Prison. As soon as we arrived, the soldiers removed the handcuffs and gave me clothes that didn't fit me at all: gray pajamas with a very tight top, underwear so tight they tore when I tried to put them on, and pants that were wide enough to fit more than one person. I remained in those clothes until the day of my release. After I got dressed, they handcuffed my hands again behind my back with metal handcuffs and took me to the doctor. The doctor asked me if I had been tortured. I replied, "Yes, I had been severely tortured and my back hurts." He asked me if I suffered from any chronic illnesses, and I replied, "No." After that, they took me to a room, where they examined my eyes and put a piece of paper in my hand with my prisoner number (090956). They asked me to repeat it and memorize it because it would replace my name. In prison, you are called by your number, not your name. After that, they took me to Barracks No. 4. There were about 70 prisoners and 16 beds. They removed the handcuffs from behind and handcuffed me again from the front. My eyes remained blindfolded. As soon as I entered, the prisoners gave me water to drink. I wanted to lie down on a mattress to rest, but the other prisoners told me this was forbidden and that, according to the instructions, I must kneel on the floor and not move at all. I knelt on the floor. Every now and then, soldiers would pass by and look at us. They put a man in charge of the barracks, a man named Abdullah al-Tabatibi, who was a member of the medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital. On the first day, I was surprised to discover that they had a unit called "Suppression." They would come and throw tear gas canisters into the barracks. Some prisoners lost consciousness, while others bled from their noses and mouths from inhaling the gas. Inside the barracks, there was a toilet and a sink, although running water was not available all the time. It was forbidden to stay in the toilet for more than half a minute. For breakfast, we were given three slices of bread with jam or labneh, for lunch three slices of bread with tuna, and for dinner three slices of bread with labneh and cucumber or an apple. This was a meal that wouldn't satisfy even a small child. When there was running water, we drank from the tap inside the toilet. During my detention in that barracks, the repression units came several times a day. The occupation soldiers would storm the place and pounce on us, beating us severely with batons all over our bodies. They would then search us one by one, throw us to the ground, stomp on us with their military boots, and hit us with their helmets. During this repression ritual, I was injured and bled more than once. They also brought large, muzzled dogs to frighten us. Some of the dogs would commit obscene acts with the prisoners. I was taken for interrogation once, and the interrogator was about sixty years old and spoke fluent Arabic. He asked for my personal information, and his questions focused on the locations of Israeli hostages and the bodies of Israelis in the Gaza Strip. He also offered me a bribe: my release in exchange for information about Hamas. During another interrogation, they threatened that if I did not cooperate, they would arrest my wife and do things to her that I would not like. Another time, they threatened to insert a large pin into my penis if I didn't cooperate. During my arrest, they also locked me in the "disco room" for three days. This is a room where they played extremely loud music nonstop. Anyone who entered would leave without hearing or balance. After holding me for 14 days in Sde Teiman Prison, they transferred me to another detention center in the Ma'ale Adumim area (apparently the Antot detention camp) and put me in a wooden box. I didn't see a lawyer and I wasn't brought before a judge. Some prisoners participated in their own court proceedings via computer. They would seat them, handcuffed to a chair, in front of three judges on a screen, while the lawyer spoke on the phone. The call would last ten seconds at most. I saw this scene several times because the room where the detainees were held for trial was opposite the barracks where I was being held. One day, they put me in a car and it drove off. All the way there, they beat me brutally, especially with an electric shock device to my head. One of the blows caused me to lose hearing in my right ear. They also beat me with regular batons more than once. Two soldiers lifted me by my hands, and a third punched me with his fists in my stomach, chest, and face, shouting, "Elite! Elite! Elite!" This continued until I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I found myself in a barracks containing about 100 prisoners. At first, I thought my hearing loss was temporary and would gradually return, but in fact, I had completely lost hearing in one ear. The toilets were inside the barracks, and access was permitted only once a day. If someone asked to go in again, the soldier would say, "Do it in your pants." When we couldn't stand it any longer, we would urinate in our pants. As a result, an unbearable stench pervaded the barracks at all times. Food was plentiful, but we refused to eat much of it so as not to have to go to the toilet. There, we were also required to kneel with our heads between our legs (in the prostration position). We were asked to sleep only on our left sides and were only allowed to sleep for two hours a night. Even then, while we slept, the soldiers would bang on the iron or make other noises, and sometimes they would call some prisoners to the window of the barrack. As soon as a prisoner reached the window, they would electrocute him with two cables. But the most severe torture was the extreme cold inside the barrack. Once, they interrogated me, on the same topics I mentioned earlier, and put me back in the "disco room" for three consecutive days until my ears bled. After that, I suffered from constant ringing in my ears. Later, they told me that they had taken me for interrogation and to the "disco" by mistake and that they had meant to call another prisoner. I lost all hearing in both ears for four days, after which my hearing returned only in my left ear. After that, I got on a bus with other detainees and was taken to Ofer Prison. This time, too, I was severely beaten all the way. When I arrived and was taken off the bus, I was greeted with beatings with batons, guns, and fists before being taken to the barracks. I stayed in that prison for only three days, but during that time, I, along with all the other prisoners, suffered from severe hunger. Every now and then, they would bring us a single slice of bread and nothing else. That was it. During my time there, the repression units entered the barracks several times with large dogs that sniffed the prisoners' bodies. Sometimes, the dog would climb and run up the prisoners' backs while we were kneeling there, and urinate on them. There were dogs performing obscene acts on the prisoners over their clothes, and the prisoners would try to get away from them. After the repression, they would release the dogs and then spray "pepper gas" through the barracks window. This gas is more painful than anything else. It causes a burning sensation in the eyes and severe pain in the respiratory system that lasts for two days. Three nights later, they took me out of the barracks early in the morning, shaved half my head, tied my hands behind my back and my feet, and threw me into a solitary confinement cell. The next morning, they took me out of the cell, put me in a car, and took me back to Sde Teiman, where I was held for one night. In the morning, they put me back on a bus with other prisoners. During the trip, the soldiers ordered us to sing songs with them, and we obeyed. One of the songs was: "One, two, three, Givati my life." Another was: "Three, two, one, Golani is the best one." Another was: "Tuta, tuta, tuta, Sinwar, son of a bitch." We drove until we reached the Kerem Shalom (Kerem Shalom) crossing southeast of Rafah. They ordered us to thank the State of Israel for the humane treatment we received during our detention, and they videotaped us saying so. Then they threatened us at gunpoint that if they found out that any of us had spoken to the media after our return, "we will come and take them back to prison." They removed the metal handcuffs, gave us a bottle of water and a bottle of juice, and returned my ID card, but without the phone and money I had with me when they arrested me. Finally, they ordered us to cross into the Gaza Strip and run west without looking back, threatening, "Anyone who looks back will be shot." We ran for a long time inside the checkpoint area until we met Red Cross vehicles, and that's when I learned the date was December 12, 2024. The Red Cross representatives took us by bus to the European Hospital, where we underwent tests. Afterward, I contacted my family, and my wife told me that they had remained in Gaza City. The day after the ceasefire was announced on January 19, 2025, I walked to Gaza City to meet my wife and children. It turned out they were staying in a small tent. We are still displaced today. When the army withdrew from the Beit Lahia project, we returned there and set up a simple tent to live in. On March 2, 2025, they closed the crossings and prevented the entry of food supplies. Goods gradually disappeared from the market, and it was no longer possible to buy food here, and no aid was available. At first, we ate only bread because we had a 25-kilogram bag of flour. My wife would prepare the bread and bake it over a fire we lit from pieces of wood I collected from the streets. When the flour ran out, I started looking for food. I found a hospice four kilometers away. I went there every day to get a plate of cooked food: beans, lentils, rice, peas, or mujaddara. All of these dishes were meatless and unseasoned, and they were neither filling nor nutritious. The portions were very small and not enough for the family, but they were the only source of nutrition available to us. When there was no food at the hospice, we went without. That's how we lived—hungry and thirsty because there was also a shortage of drinking water. We ate just to quell our hunger a little. There was no sign on the horizon that this hunger that was destroying our bodies and the bodies of our children would ever end. The joy of returning home and the hope that the war would end quickly faded. On March 18, 2025, the war resumed, and we returned to living under the nightmare of killing, bombing, destruction, and displacement. We were forced to flee the Beit Lahia project once again. We now live in a tent near the Yarmouk football stadium in Gaza City, suffering from poverty and hunger. We have no means of obtaining food to satisfy our children's hunger. Even water is almost non-existent. We lack all the necessities of human life here, and the situation is worsening by the day. No food has entered the Strip for more than a month and a half. I leave the tent every day in search of food. I search for functioning takayas and stand in long lines, crowded together, just to get a single plate of rice, peas, or beans to share. But sometimes, after a long wait, I don't even get that. By the time my turn arrives, the dishes are gone, and I return empty-handed. A few days ago, I couldn't find a single hospice. Many have closed due to a lack of food preparation products and a lack of money to buy products, even if they are available in the market. Sometimes I manage to get one or two loaves of bread, and we have to make do with that. We go to bed hungry and wake up hungry and terrified by the bombing and the noise of the planes. All we can do is wait for the moment when God will save us.* This testimony was recorded by B'Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on April 24, 2025.