On 14 February 2024, around midnight, Israeli soldiers broke into my home and raided it very violently. They detained me and my wife and ransacked our apartment and my parents’ apartment on the first floor of our shared building. During the raid, my wife collapsed from fear and fainted. She was unconscious for about three minutes, and the soldiers wouldn’t let me help her. I was forced to stand and look at her helplessly. After that, an officer ordered me to bring her water and take her to another room. I asked the officer what they wanted from me. He said he wanted me to hand over my weapon. I told him I didn’t have a weapon and that I was an officer in the Palestinian Preventive Security Service. The officer threatened to damage our home and destroy everything in it.
After that, the soldiers took me down to the ground floor and tied my hands behind my back. On the ground floor of our building there are rented shops. They broke down their doors and caused extensive damage to property there. I told them my back hurt, so the officer cut the zip ties with a knife, wounding the palm of my left hand. The soldiers stayed in our home until around 9:00 A.M. Then they tied my hands in front of me and took me to a detention facility at a military base in Gush Etzion. After I was released, my wife told me that during the raid, the soldiers stole hard drives from our home with photos and videos from our wedding.
During the drive, the soldiers violently attacked me and the other prisoners. I was punched in the back and kicked, and dogs were set on me. When we got to Ofer Prison and the bus stopped, we were attacked again.
When they put me into the military vehicle, the soldiers forced me to lie face down and stepped on my back. They shouted at me while the vehicle was moving, chanting, “Am Yisrael Chai!” They beat me and I shouted in pain, and they forced me to repeat the chant after them. They cursed me and called me “son of a bitch.” I didn’t understand what was happening around me or why the soldiers were doing that.
We arrived at a military camp with a detention facility near the Gush Etzion junction. They pulled me out of the vehicle violently: Two soldiers grabbed my legs, dragged me out and threw me to the ground face down. They forced me to get down on my knees. I saw dozens of people there, young men, women and children, all sitting on the ground in the yard with their hands tied. The ground was covered with gravel. A soldier came up to me and asked which organization I belonged to. I said Fatah. He kicked me hard in the back and said, “You’re all sons of bitches.”
Just then, a military doctor came and started asking me questions about my health. He didn’t wait for my answers and filled out the medical questionnaire himself. After that, they took me into the detention facility at Etzion Prison and put me in a waiting room with a security camera. They forced me to strip completely in front of three soldiers and ordered me several times to bend down and straighten again while they searched my body, with me completely naked. Some of the soldiers walked back and forth during the search. It lasted a few minutes and was extremely humiliating.
After that, the soldiers took me to a prison cell. We were 12 detainees in the cell, with only 10 beds. Two of us shared a thin mattress and a blanket on the floor. The cell had a toilet and a shower, separated from the beds by a concrete wall about 1.3 meters high. The cell was very damp and had only one window, which was covered from the outside with a metal sheet. During roll call, we were forced to get down on our knees with our hands on our heads and stay like that until they were done. We ate in the yard, three times a day. There were about 60 prisoners there, and we were given a meal that wasn’t even enough for 10 people: one bag of labneh (one kg), six cucumbers and six slices of bread. Lunch was undercooked rice without sauce served in a metal container, and they didn’t give us spoons. The amount of rice in the container was enough for less than 10% of us, and some didn’t even get a single spoonful. Dinner was the same as breakfast, with even smaller portions. Prisoners with diabetes or high blood pressure didn’t get food they needed for their condition, and in general people with chronic illnesses didn’t get medication regularly.
They forced me to bend down and straighten up several times in front of the guards, who ran a metal detector over my entire body in a humiliating way. The guard who searched me said extremely obscene things, such as, “I want to rape you,” “I want to play with you [...]”
I was held in Etzion Prison for three days. From there, I was transferred with a group of prisoners to Ofer Prison. They took us to the outer yard of the Etzion detention facility, where a bus was waiting from the Nahshon Unit in charge of transporting detainees between prisons. They tied our hands and feet with metal cuffs. When we got on the bus, the guards started cursing us and calling us “sons of bitches.” They ordered us to sit on the metal seats inside the bus with our heads down. We were not allowed to look out the windows or at the person next to us. During the drive, the soldiers violently attacked me and the other prisoners. I was punched in the back and kicked, and dogs were set on me. When we got to Ofer Prison and the bus stopped, we were attacked again.
They led us to a concrete room about 2.5 by 2.5 meters. We were about 25 detainees inside it. We stayed in that room for around 10 hours, with no food, water or access to toilets. We got so thirsty that we drank water from a moldy pipe there.
After that, they took me to another concrete cell, where I had another humiliating strip search. Again, they forced me to bend down and straighten up several times in front of the guards, who ran a metal detector over my entire body in a humiliating way. The guard who searched me said extremely obscene things, such as, “I want to rape you,” “I want to play with you,” “I want to play with your ass,” and “I’m going to put this up your ass.” I was shocked by the crude language, especially because it wasn’t my first arrest. This time, the treatment was completely different. The guards wanted to humiliate us. They stared at me, inappropriately and disrespectfully, while I stood there naked. I got stressed and did what they told me so they wouldn’t beat me. When they finished the search, they gave me prison clothes and took me to Cell 4 in Wing 20. They led me there shackled and bent over, and the guards shouted and swore, “Move, whore! Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”
The cell was completely empty. I saw clothes and blankets scattered on the floor, as if a search had taken place. There was blood on the floor. I was shocked. I’d never seen anything like that. With me they brought in nine other detainees who had gone through the same search. I was so scared, I couldn’t breathe or speak. I thought they were going to kill us. I felt like I was in another world. I heard voices outside the cell, etainees saying, “Leave the clothes, their owners might come back.” When I asked them what happened, one of them told me the guards had fired inside the cell and injured several detainees, and then taken them away. We were terrified. We sat on the floor, unable to move or make a sound, afraid they would shoot us. All 10 of us stayed there in shock, unable to move. There was complete silence, as if all the detainees had been forbidden to speak or go near the windows. We stayed there without food or water until 10:00 P.M. We couldn’t even bring ourselves to go to the door and ask for food. We were exhausted from the beatings and paralyzed with fear. That day, I didn’t hear the call to prayer.
Breakfast consisted of a very small container of labneh (about five grams), two cucumbers for the entire cell, five or seven slices of bread cut into small pieces, and one spoonful of jam (about five grams). They just wanted to keep us alive. Lunch was undercooked rice and lentil or bean soup, and there wasn’t enough for everyone. Dinner was one hard-boiled egg, one tomato and a small spoonful of hummus, without bread.
The guard ran a metal detector over me, pressed it against my anus and pulled on my testicles. It wasn’t a regular search. It was sexual harassment. Female soldiers held my testicles and penis and said, “I’m going to rape you.”
I was held in Ofer Prison for six months. During that time, I was informed that an administrative detention order had been issued against me for six months. During this period, I was brought before the court at Ofer Prison. Even to court we were taken in a humiliating way, with our hands tied behind our backs and forced to bend our heads down in the corridor. The guards beat us and badly insulted about our wives, mothers and sisters.
In December 2024, I was transferred to another wing and cell, where I was held with 12 other detainees. On the day of the transfer, the guards ordered us to lie face down with our hands above our heads. They brought a dog that stood by our legs, and we were very afraid. They put metal handcuffs on us and then led us, bent over, to an inner yard. There, they hurled disgusting insults at us: “Sons of bitches! Sons of dogs! Criminals!”
I was held in that yard for three hours, down on my knees and handcuffed. The next morning, a guard told me I was being sent to a Shin Bet interrogation. I got to the interrogation center and went into a room. The interrogator started asking routine questions. He also asked if there were any indictments against me. He said, “You care about your kids, and we care about our kids.” I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. During the interrogation, I was told that my administrative detention had been extended by another six months. I asked him why I was being detained. He said he didn’t know, that there were security procedures, and that he wouldn’t feel at ease if I was released.
They sent me back to prison and to my cell. Three days later, I was transferred with several other prisoners from Ofer Prison to Ketziot Prison. On the day of the transfer, they put us in a waiting room. One of the prisoners couldn’t walk on his own, I think because he was beaten. He asked me to tell the Nahshon Unit guards that he couldn’t walk and needed help from other detainees.
I contracted scabies and suffered terribly from it. My entire body became covered in a red rash and bleeding sores from constant scratching. I wanted to die to end the pain and suffering. I wasn’t alone. Everyone was suffering like me.
I told them, but when they called his name and I tried to help him, a female guard ordered me to go back to my place. When I tried to explain his condition, she said, “Inshallah you and he will die.” The guards went over to him, threw him down on the ground and started brutally beating and kicking him. His screams filled the room. I was stunned by what I saw and couldn’t do anything to help him. They tied his hands and feet with metal cuffs and dragged him by the legs.
When it was my turn, they tied my hands and feet and led me away with my head down. One of them grabbed my neck from behind. They hit me hard on the back all the way to the bus. A guard was standing on the steps of the bus, and when I got to him, he kicked me hard in the testicles. It hurt badly and I almost blacked out. I got on the bus and sat down on a metal seat like the other prisoners. At that point, members of the Nahshon Unit went over to the prisoner who couldn’t walk and started hitting him in on the head, over and over. He couldn’t move. It broke my heart, watching that. His screams filled the bus, and none of the detainees dared to speak or ask the guards to stop.
The bus drove for hours until we reached Ramle Prison, where detainees are gathered before they’re transferred to other prisons. Several buses were parked in a circle in the yard. To get off the bus, we had to go through a human corridor of Nahshon Unit guards. As I passed them, they kicked me and hit me on my back, my head and all over my body. When I reached the steps of the bus, I got another blow to the testicles, which was extremely painful. When I got back on the bus, a guard again grabbed the same prisoner, beat him and dragged him along the ground.
We drove again until we reached the Be’er Sheva prison complex, specifically Ohaley Kedar Prison. There, the guards forced us off the bus and again grabbed the prisoner who couldn’t walk and dragged him by the legs. He screamed, and they hit him violently with their hands and feet and cursed him. We were all terrified. I was frozen in fear from seeing the beatings and attacks.
When it was my turn to get off the bus, one of the Nahshon Unit guards ordered me to come over. He was standing on the steps of the bus. When I reached him, he ordered me to get down on my knees, and I obeyed. He grabbed my ear, put my head between his thighs and squeezed hard. Then he hit me with his elbow in the middle of my back, again and again. He had on hard plastic gloves and hit me again, dozens more times, on my sides and chest. I screamed so loudly I was sure the whole prison could hear. I thought he was going to kill me. I felt my ribs breaking from the force of the blows. I couldn’t breathe. The assault lasted several minutes. Then he dragged me off the bus. I fell to the ground and couldn’t move. While I was lying there, another guard came and dragged me dozens of meters by my metal cuffs. I saw another prisoner, who looked like he was in his thirties, with a broken big toe on his left foot. He was screaming in pain.
They put me in a cell with the two other prisoners I mentioned earlier, another prisoner from Jerusalem, and an elderly prisoner who used metal crutches. There were no mattresses, blankets or pillows. For 13 hours, we were given nothing to eat. We asked for food. One of the guards said, “I’ll bring you food without anyone knowing.” He brought us boiled potatoes and bread and told me to hide the food before the other guards arrived.
They called out over the loudspeakers in the wing, “Roll call, dogs! Roll call, animals!” The guard cursed us over the loudspeakers and ordered us to keep our heads down on our knees.
All night, we asked for medical attention because we were in severe pain from the beatings and could barely move. I had trouble breathing or speaking. We didn’t receive any treatment. Only in the morning, that guard brought us a bottle of cold water. They took us out of the cell the same way they brought us in, and the prisoner who couldn’t walk was dragged in a degrading way.
From there, we were transferred to Nafha Prison. When we arrived, we were attacked by the Keter Unit. They were in uniforms and were masked most of the time. After they put us in the cells, they came back and attacked us. They beat us brutally for several minutes. I felt they wanted to kill us or injure us for life. I never saw such an attack in Ofer Prison. One of the prisoners, Ahmad Hatem Khdeirat from the Hebron area, had diabetes. After I was released, I learned that he died at Soroka Hospital. While we were in prison, he was prevented from receiving They didn’t give him insulin regularly. But after that attack, one of the guards came, gave him an insulin injection shot and told him to manage on his own. He was forced to inject himself in the stomach. At that moment, the guard told said to him, “Inshallah you die.” After I was released, I learned that he had died at Soroka Hospital. While we were in prison, he was prevented from receiving
On one of the times they took me for a search, Keter members led me along violently, called me “son of a bitch” and beat me, including in the testicles. When we reached the search room, they removed the cuffs from my hands and feet, ordered me to strip completely and forced me to bend down and straighten up several times. There were several people in the room whom I think were from the Keter Unit. My eyes were covered, but I could hear them around me. There were also female soldiers there, even though I was naked. One of them touched my testicles several times, and other parts of my body. I felt her hands and heard her speaking next to me. The guard ran a metal detector over me, pressed it against my anus and pulled on my testicles. It wasn’t a regular search. It was sexual harassment. Female soldiers held my testicles and penis and said, “I’m going to rape you.” They squeezed my testicles and I screamed in pain. I don’t know if there were cameras or phones documenting us while we were naked. I want to die, it was so humiliating. It felt like a deliberate decision to sexually humiliate and torture us.
After the search was over, they cuffed my hands and feet again and ordered me to keep my head and hold the shirt of the prisoner in front of me, while the prisoner behind me held my shirt. The unit members led us like that, beating and cursing us, until we reached the area of the cells. There, they removed my blindfold and cuffs and put me in Cell 13. The guard opened the door, and I found myself in a cell with 10 nine other detainees, who were sitting at the far end of the cell with fear visible on their faces. After the guard left, I asked them what happened. All they said was to keep quiet so no one would hear us. The prison was terrifying, and the cells were full of fear.
The prisoners in the cell had scabies. Almost every part of their bodies was bleeding from the constant scratching. The sight was awful. I was horrified. Five of us slept on beds and five on the floor. They scratched all night. There was no medication and no doctor examined them. It felt that death was close for everyone in the cell. Each of us had a thin foam mattress with no cover or pillow, and two blankets. The window was open, without glass, and it was very cold at night. The shower was in the yard and had no light. The guards allowed us to shower once every two weeks. We got very little food. Each of us got about 50 grams of undercooked rice, two spoonfuls of hummus and one spoonful of undercooked lentils, along with some pieces of bread and other things like a hard-boiled egg or a small container of milk, no more than five grams, per prisoner. We received three meals a day, but not at fixed times. Most of the day we fasted and saved the food for the evening. In the evening, we mixed everything together in a plastic container. We crumbled bread on top, added a few cups of water, mixed it, drank the water and then ate what was left in the container. It had no nutritional value and didn’t taste like food, but we did it to survive.
The young prisoner who was attacked by the dog was covered in blood. We were in shock. None of us dared approach the window to call for a doctor, because we were afraid they would attack us again. We spent the night in terror.
I was tense and afraid all the time, and felt that my end was near. I told myself I wouldn’t leave that place alive. On top of everything else, I contracted scabies and suffered terribly from it. My entire body became covered in a red rash and bleeding sores from constant scratching. I wanted to die to end the pain and suffering. I wasn’t alone. Everyone was suffering like me. I never imagined prison conditions could reach such a level of cruelty, violence and torture. I honestly thought we would all die there.
During roll calls, we were forced to kneel at the back of the cell in the prostration position, with our heads on our knees and our hands behind our backs. The term “roll call” filled us all with terror. They called out over the loudspeakers in the wing, “Roll call, dogs! Roll call, animals!” The guard cursed us over the loudspeakers and ordered us to keep our heads down on our knees. When the guards came into the cells during roll call, they swore at us and spat on us. They humiliated us in every possible way.
I spent a year and a half in Ketziot Prison. It was one of the worst periods in prison I ever experienced.
In October 2024, it was very cold at night without windowpanes in the desert air. One night, around 4:00 A.M., we woke up terrified by the sound of stun grenades in our wing. We looked at each other as if death was hovering over us. We ran to the corner of the cell because we knew that after stun grenades, the Keter Unit usually stormed one of the cells. We huddled together in the back of the cell without being told to. The moment the cell door opened, I felt my heart stop. We all held our breath. We stood there pressed together, unable to move or look behind us. The force set a dog on us. It attacked one of the guys in the cell and pinned him down. The dog tore into his body with its claws and hit him on the back with its muzzle. The young man screamed and cried. We all screamed and cried, without knowing what was happening around us. They dragged us out of the cell by our arms and legs to Area 24 and beat us brutally there. My body couldn’t take the blows from the unit members. They beat us with their hands and batons, sprayed us with pepper spray and then transferred us to Cell 10, locked the door and left. The young prisoner who had been attacked by the dog was covered in blood. We were in shock. None of us dared approach the window to call for a doctor, because we were afraid they would attack us again. We spent the night in terror.
In the morning, we were still terrified and couldn’t even speak. There was repression activity almost every day in the wings, but we never knew when it would be our turn.
In March 2025, I was sleeping on the cell floor next to a detainee who had metal implants in his body and hands from a previous injury, when stun grenades were thrown in the wing again, around 2:00 A.M. The guy next to me got such a fright, he jumped onto me. We all ran to the corner of the cell, terrified and shaking, afraid we would be attacked again. But that day, the unit stormed another cell and no prisoners were attacked there. The next day, at 4:00 A.M., they called out over the loudspeakers for everyone to prepare for transfer and take their plastic cups and plates. Meanwhile, we heard stun grenades being thrown in other wing. We panicked and didn’t know what was happening. That day, we were transferred to Wing 27. Throughout the night, unit members and guards played loud noises and alarms, sometimes truck horns and sometimes just disco music. We couldn’t sleep. It drove us mad and made our ears hurt. Once in a while, the guards howled like dogs or other animals. This went on all night.
One of the hardest things I experienced in that prison was in Cell 4 in Wing 14. There was a prisoner in our cell named Muhyi a-Din Nijm, 59, from the Jenin area. He had some kind of stomach disease and scabies all over his body. He was in constant pain. When the guards came to do roll call, he couldn’t get out of bed. The guards ordered him to get down, but the other prisoners told them he was very ill. One guard, whose name I know, went up to him and started yelling, and then threw him to the floor. The elderly prisoner’s screams filled the wing. We were all shocked and frightened. Soon afterwards, the guards returned with the prison doctor. When they took Nijm out of the cell, he told the guards the man was dead. We were all in shock. In the morning, guards came and one of them told us, “Watch out. Someone died today.”
About a month and a half before my release, I met a prisoner from Tulkarm in the cells. He was badly injured in the lower limbs. His leg was a strange color. It was extremely swollen and the bone was exposed. He had infected wounds there. He told me guards had fired tear gas canisters into the cell and one had hit his leg, causing serious injury. Because there was no doctor in the prison and he wasn’t given treatment, his leg was very swollen that day and I feared for his life. I assumed his leg would have to be amputated. I couldn’t understand what was happening there. It felt like the IPS was trying to kill the prisoners. He asked whether, if I was released, I could visit his family and tell them to do everything in their power to get him a doctor. It was horrifying to look at him. I didn’t know what to say. Tears ran down my face.
The entire time in Ketziot, we weren’t given a change clothes, not even underwear. We would shower and wash our underwear and clothes, and put them back on still wet.
One time, when I was showering with some prisoners, members of the Keter Unit stormed the showers and sprayed us with pepper spray. We fell down and crawled naked in the yard, gasping for air.
One time, when I was showering with some prisoners, members of the Keter Unit stormed the showers and sprayed us with pepper spray. We fell down and crawled naked in the yard, gasping for air.
Once, I met some young men in one of the cells. They told me that one day, guards had stormed a cell with two prisoners inside. The guards had ordered one of them to take off his underwear and bend over. They gave the other a carrot and forced him to rape his cellmate. They threatened him, and he was forced to do it several times. One of the young men told me that guards had sexually assaulted him during a transfer to solitary confinement. I heard those stories and couldn’t understand how this could happen. The two young men were in a constant state of shock and were isolated. They couldn’t think or speak about what was going on. I kept asking myself, “How will this end? Will I get out of prison alive? Is this just a nightmare?”
On 30 October 2025, I was released from Ketziot Prison. During my transfer, I was beaten severely on my arms and legs. When we reached the Meitar crossing south of Hebron, they took me off the bus and ordered me to sign a receipt for my belongings. After I signed, I discovered that 300 shekels had been taken from my wallet. I knew the guards escorting me were the ones who stole them. I didn’t say anything. I just walked away quickly.
I’m in pain and suffering from anxiety. Every time I hear about a military raid, I’m overwhelmed with fear and panic. My hands and legs start shaking involuntarily, as if the fear is alive and breathing inside my body.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja’bari on 9 November 2025
