Hammouda initially spent greater than a day in confinement at a neighbor’s residence in Gaza, the place he stated he was stripped to his underwear. Interrogators beat him when he denied being concerned with Hamas, he recounted; one soldier held a knife to his hand, threatening to chop off a finger until he admitted to possessing weapons.
“I assured them that I used to be a college scholar and had no connection to any army organizations,” Hammouda stated.
On the afternoon of Dec. 9, he stated, troopers drove him over the embattled border to what he assumed was an Israeli army web site. From beneath his blindfold, he glimpsed a big barracks surrounded by barbed wire. Troopers took roll name every single day for some 120 detainees in grey jumpsuits. Armed guards patrolled. He heard plane circling above. Every prisoner had a wristband with a quantity: His was 057906.
The Publish couldn’t independently confirm Hammouda’s account, however it’s according to these of six different lately launched detainees interviewed for this story, in addition to testimonies collected by human rights teams and different media studies.
A whole bunch of Palestinians — each combatants and civilians — have been detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and incarcerated with out cost inside Israel underneath a secretive authorized framework that rights teams say has by no means been utilized at this scale. Advocates say the system is deliberately opaque and open to abuse, permitting detainees to successfully disappear right into a authorized grey zone.
Hammouda has no official file of his detention. All he has is a deposit slip, written in Hebrew, which he stated his jailers gave to him after they returned his Palestinian identification card. The undated doc, shared with The Publish, lists his title, ID quantity and beginning date. It doesn’t say the place it was issued, or by whom.
The Israel Protection Forces didn’t reply to particular questions concerning the arrest or detention of the Gazans interviewed for this story however offered a basic assertion saying: “Throughout fight within the Gaza Strip, suspects of terrorist actions had been arrested. The related suspects are dropped at Israeli territory for additional investigation.” The army went on to say that suspects not concerned in terrorist exercise are despatched again to Gaza and those that stay in detention are handled in accordance with Israeli regulation.
Requested concerning the alleged capturing of Hammouda’s grandfather, the IDF informed The Publish that “questions of this sort can be appeared into at a later stage.”
The previous prisoners informed The Publish they had been grilled in interrogations: The place had been you on Oct. 7? Do you’re employed with Hamas? Who else helps Hamas? The place are the tunnels? The place are the fighters?
Muhammad Abu Zour, 24, stated he was held for 20 days inside Israel, the place troopers withheld meals as punishment.
“They all the time insist on accusing us of belonging to Hamas,” he stated. When he denied it, he stated, troopers kicked and hit him. Abu Zour stated his interrogators made him signal a Hebrew doc he didn’t perceive. They provided him cash if he spied for Israel. He refused.
Typically, Hammouda remembered, a detainee does “not return till he’s coated in blood or has traces of torture on him, or screams and cries from the depth of ache.” Different occasions, Gazans accused of Hamas connections are despatched to a different facility, he stated.
Hammouda feared that may be his destiny. As a substitute, on Dec. 26, troopers handed over his identification card, loaded him onto a bus and drove him again into the southern Gaza Strip by means of the Kerem Shalom crossing. When the blindfold was eliminated, he stated, the depth of the sunshine practically knocked him over. Troopers informed him to stroll towards Rafah and never look again.
“Is there any observe file of who has been arrested, who’s been launched, who died, I can’t inform you — by regulation, the [Israeli authorities] don’t should,” stated Tal Steiner, govt director of the Public Committee Towards Torture in Israel. “No person sees the place they’re held and underneath what situations. What’s the legality for holding them?”
Hundreds of Hamas militants and allied fighters rampaged by means of southern Israel on Oct. 7 and, underneath the duvet of rockets, killed 1,200 individuals and took round 240 hostages, in accordance with Israeli authorities. As Israel fought to retake the south, it stated it recovered the our bodies of about 1,500 gunmen and detained an unspecified variety of Hamas fighters.
“Some detainees had been arrested Oct. 7, so fairly moderately [they included] Hamas combatants concerned within the atrocities,” Steiner stated. “However many, many others have been arrested in Gaza in the midst of the operation, so that they may very well be concerned in Hamas. They is also simply residents, harmless bystanders or individuals suspected of being concerned.”
Israeli forces have swept up a whole bunch of Gazans as they transfer by means of the ruined enclave in pursuit of Hamas. Some Palestinians had been taken from battlefields, others from hospitals, houses or whereas fleeing alongside Israeli-designated evacuation routes. Photos leaked in December exhibiting lots of detainees blindfolded and stripped to their underwear elicited worldwide outrage.
The Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross says Israel has barred its representatives from visiting Palestinian prisoners detained since Oct. 7.
The IDF stated final month that “over 700 operatives from terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip have been taken for additional questioning” in Israel. Some, the IDF stated, voluntarily “turned themselves in.”
“Detainees held by the IDF who’re discovered to not be concerned in terror exercise following their preliminary screening and questioning are promptly launched again to the Gaza Strip, usually by means of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” the IDF stated in an announcement to The Publish. “Those who should proceed to be held are introduced earlier than a judicial overview by a choose in accordance with Israeli regulation.”
The IDF declined to touch upon what number of detainees have been held or launched, citing “safety causes.” The army referred questions on alleged abuse throughout interrogations to Shin Guess, Israel’s home safety service, which didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. The Israel Jail Service referred inquiries to the IDF and Shin Guess.
No less than six Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons since Oct. 7, in accordance with the Palestinian Prisoners Membership, a Ramallah-based advocacy group. The IDF informed The Publish that it was “conscious of circumstances of deaths of detainees” however couldn’t elaborate as a consequence of ongoing investigations.
Israel’s air and floor struggle in Gaza has killed greater than 23,000 individuals and injured some 59,000, in accordance with the Gaza Well being Ministry; the ministry says not less than 99 Gazan medical staff are in Israeli custody.
Since Oct. 7, Israel has additionally ramped up arrests within the occupied West Financial institution and East Jerusalem, the place Palestinians are topic to army regulation. Israeli army regulation has not been utilized in Gaza since 2005, when the nation withdrew its forces from the strip.
Gazans “concerned in terrorist exercise” could be detained underneath felony regulation or by means of the Illegal Combatants Legislation, the IDF stated in an announcement. Underneath the UCL, Palestinian prisoners are topic to a type of administrative detention, or incarceration with out cost or trial, stated Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s director for Israel and the Palestinian territories. They don’t seem to be categorised as prisoners of struggle.
The IDF informed The Publish that the UCL removes somebody “from the cycle of hostilities” and “grants a number of procedural safeguards and primary rights.”
Although enacted in 2002, the UCL has by no means been utilized to so many prisoners directly, Steiner stated. Underneath wartime amendments, Israel can maintain somebody for 45 days earlier than issuing an indictment; a choose has 75 days to overview the detention. A detainee could be held for 180 days with out entry to a lawyer.
“You may examine [the UCL] to the Patriot Act,” stated Steiner, referring to the U.S. regulation handed after the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults. “We actually concern that we’re going to see one other Guantánamo, or one other Abu Ghraib.”
The Israel Jail Service informed Hamoked, an Israeli rights group, this month that 661 Gazans had been detained underneath the regulation as of Jan. 1, up from 260 in December, however didn’t disclose the place they’re being held.
The one detention web site to be publicly recognized by Israeli authorities is the Sede Teiman army base, within the south, which the IDF stated was arrange as a “screening” and medical facility after the struggle started. Circumstances “mirror the necessities of Israeli regulation and worldwide regulation,” the assertion stated.
Detainees “obtain three meals a day, entry to water, clothes, mattresses, and blankets, in addition to toilet-access,” the IDF stated, and are provided a day by day medical inspection.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Prisoners Membership launched the names of 51 ladies from Gaza it stated are detained at Damon jail in northern Israel — a threefold improve from November. Hammouda’s sister, 69-year-old grandmother and three feminine cousins are on the listing.
Hammouda nonetheless doesn’t know the place he was imprisoned. He stated he was allowed to sleep a couple of hours at a time on a skinny mattress. He had three meals a day — bread with cheese, tuna, apple or tomato — and will use the lavatory and drink water about as soon as every day. A physician got here day by day, however checked solely detainees with essential accidents, resembling “amputation candidates,” Hammouda stated. Many detainees had been sick or wounded.
Hours after Abu Zour’s launch on Dec. 26, he spoke to The Publish by cellphone from al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, the place he stated he was being handled for heavy bruising.
Marwan al-Hams, the hospital’s director, stated different detainees have arrived residence with comparable accidents, in addition to contaminated wounds. In mid-December, the hospital acquired the physique of an unidentified man, dropped off by Israel at Kerem Shalom.
Requested concerning the useless man, the IDF informed The Publish: “An investigation is performed for every demise of a detainee. The critiques are nonetheless ongoing, so it isn’t doable to touch upon the findings of those critiques.”
Saqr al-Jamal, 59, went to Najjar hospital for therapy on Dec. 22 after being launched from Israeli custody. A resident of Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, he stated he was captured by troopers in November whereas sheltering in an empty college.
In detention in Israel, Jamal stated he was usually chilly and urinated on himself. Troopers tied his fingers above his head to a fence as punishment for peeking from his blindfold, he stated.
“I used to be interrogated if I knew if any kin belonged to Hamas,” Jamal informed The Publish. “They requested me if I knew the place the fighters’ explosive gadgets had been.”
“I informed them that I’m previous and sick and I have no idea something.”
Harb reported from London. Loay Ayyoub in Rafah, on the Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.
