Hammouda initially spent greater than a day in confinement at a neighbor’s house in Gaza, the place he mentioned 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 mentioned.
On the afternoon of Dec. 9, he mentioned, troopers drove him over the embattled border to what he assumed was an Israeli army website. From beneath his blindfold, he glimpsed a big barracks surrounded by barbed wire. Troopers took roll name daily 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 Submit couldn’t independently confirm Hammouda’s account, however it’s in step with these of six different lately launched detainees interviewed for this story, in addition to testimonies collected by human rights teams and different media stories.
Tons of of Palestinians — each combatants and civilians — have been detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and incarcerated with out cost inside Israel below 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 mentioned his jailers gave to him once they returned his Palestinian identification card. The undated doc, shared with The Submit, lists his title, ID quantity and start 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 normal assertion saying: “Throughout fight within the Gaza Strip, suspects of terrorist actions had been arrested. The related suspects are delivered to 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 legislation.
Requested concerning the alleged taking pictures of Hammouda’s grandfather, the IDF advised The Submit that “questions of this sort will probably be appeared into at a later stage.”
The previous prisoners advised The Submit 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, mentioned he was held for 20 days inside Israel, the place troopers withheld meals as punishment.
“They at all times insist on accusing us of belonging to Hamas,” he mentioned. When he denied it, he mentioned, troopers kicked and hit him. Abu Zour mentioned his interrogators made him signal a Hebrew doc he didn’t perceive. They provided him cash if he spied for Israel. He refused.
Generally, 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 mentioned.
Hammouda feared that might 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 mentioned, the depth of the sunshine practically knocked him over. Troopers advised 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 legislation, the [Israeli authorities] don’t need to,” mentioned Tal Steiner, govt director of the Public Committee Towards Torture in Israel. “No one sees the place they’re held and below what situations. What’s the legality for holding them?”
1000’s of Hamas militants and allied fighters rampaged by means of southern Israel on Oct. 7 and, below the quilt of rockets, killed 1,200 individuals and took round 240 hostages, in keeping with Israeli authorities. As Israel fought to retake the south, it mentioned 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 mentioned. “However many, many others have been arrested in Gaza in the midst of the operation, so that they could possibly be concerned in Hamas. They may be simply residents, harmless bystanders or individuals suspected of being concerned.”
Israeli forces have swept up lots of 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. Photographs leaked in December displaying lots of detainees blindfolded and stripped to their underwear elicited worldwide outrage.
The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross says Israel has barred its representatives from visiting Palestinian prisoners detained since Oct. 7.
The IDF mentioned final month that “over 700 operatives from terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip have been taken for additional questioning” in Israel. Some, the IDF mentioned, 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, typically by means of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” the IDF mentioned in a press release to The Submit. “Those who should proceed to be held are introduced earlier than a judicial evaluation by a choose in keeping with Israeli legislation.”
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 Wager, 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 Wager.
A minimum of six Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons since Oct. 7, in keeping with the Palestinian Prisoners Membership, a Ramallah-based advocacy group. The IDF advised The Submit that it was “conscious of circumstances of deaths of detainees” however couldn’t elaborate as a result of ongoing investigations.
Israel’s air and floor conflict in Gaza has killed greater than 23,000 individuals and injured some 59,000, in keeping 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 legislation. Israeli army legislation 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 below felony legislation or by means of the Illegal Combatants Legislation, the IDF mentioned in a press release. Underneath the UCL, Palestinian prisoners are topic to a type of administrative detention, or incarceration with out cost or trial, mentioned Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s director for Israel and the Palestinian territories. They aren’t labeled as prisoners of conflict.
The IDF advised The Submit that the UCL removes somebody “from the cycle of hostilities” and “grants a number of procedural safeguards and fundamental rights.”
Although enacted in 2002, the UCL has by no means been utilized to so many prisoners directly, Steiner mentioned. Underneath wartime amendments, Israel can maintain somebody for 45 days earlier than issuing an indictment; a choose has 75 days to evaluation 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,” mentioned Steiner, referring to the U.S. legislation handed after the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults. “We actually worry that we’re going to see one other Guantánamo, or one other Abu Ghraib.”
The Israel Jail Service advised Hamoked, an Israeli rights group, this month that 661 Gazans had been detained below the legislation as of Jan. 1, up from 260 in December, however didn’t disclose the place they’re being held.
The one detention website to be publicly recognized by Israeli authorities is the Sede Teiman army base, within the south, which the IDF mentioned was arrange as a “screening” and medical facility after the conflict started. Situations “replicate the necessities of Israeli legislation and worldwide legislation,” the assertion mentioned.
Detainees “obtain three meals a day, entry to water, clothes, mattresses, and blankets, in addition to toilet-access,” the IDF mentioned, and are provided a day by day medical inspection.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Prisoners Membership launched the names of 51 girls from Gaza it mentioned 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 checklist.
Hammouda nonetheless doesn’t know the place he was imprisoned. He mentioned he was allowed to sleep just a few 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 toilet and drink water about as soon as every day. A health care provider got here day by day, however checked solely detainees with vital accidents, reminiscent of “amputation candidates,” Hammouda mentioned. Many detainees had been sick or wounded.
Hours after Abu Zour’s launch on Dec. 26, he spoke to The Submit by telephone from al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, the place he mentioned he was being handled for heavy bruising.
Marwan al-Hams, the hospital’s director, mentioned different detainees have arrived house with related accidents, in addition to contaminated wounds. In mid-December, the hospital obtained the physique of an unidentified man, dropped off by Israel at Kerem Shalom.
Requested concerning the lifeless man, the IDF advised The Submit: “An investigation is performed for every demise of a detainee. The opinions are nonetheless ongoing, so it isn’t attainable to touch upon the findings of those opinions.”
Saqr al-Jamal, 59, went to Najjar hospital for remedy on Dec. 22 after being launched from Israeli custody. A resident of Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, he mentioned he was captured by troopers in November whereas sheltering in an empty faculty.
In detention in Israel, Jamal mentioned he was usually chilly and urinated on himself. Troopers tied his arms above his head to a fence as punishment for peeking from his blindfold, he mentioned.
“I used to be interrogated if I knew if any family belonged to Hamas,” Jamal advised The Submit. “They requested me if I knew the place the fighters’ explosive units had been.”
“I advised them that I’m outdated and sick and I have no idea something.”
Harb reported from London. Loay Ayyoub in Rafah, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.