Anonymous testimonies from Palestinian prisoners have revealed the horrific rape, torture, and abuse that they suffered while being detained by Israel, despite Israeli attempts to threaten them into silence.

 

Israel released 1,968 Palestinian prisoners as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump, but over 8,000 remain in detention.

 

It imposed heavy restrictions on them after their release, threatening them with punishment if they held any celebrations or spoke to the media.

 

Most of the prisoners were released to Gaza, but dozens were also released to the West Bank, which is still under Israeli occupation. They could face re-arrest at any time.

 

Many of the released prisoners showed signs of torture, abuse, and starvation.

 

The bodies of dead Gaza prisoners were also returned to the devastated territory, showing signs of torture and abuse.

 

"The bodies of Gaza’s prisoners were returned to us bound like animals, blindfolded, and bearing horrific signs of torture and burns - evidence of atrocities committed in secrecy," Munir al-Bursh, Director General of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said in a post on X.

 

The New Arab’s affiliate Al-Araby TV was given access by the Palestinian Prisoners Club to testimonies from prisoners formerly held by Israel, but this was on condition that the identity of the prisoners would not be revealed.

 

 

 

 

One former prisoner said they were tied down and raped with a stick by a prison guard, leaving them struggling to breathe.

 

"As my pain and screams increased, the prisoner moved the stick more. I am now in permanent pain, particularly when I sit down, and I can’t talk except in whispers," they said.

 

The prisoner stressed that they didn’t want to be identified or to make any kind of complaint because they feared that they would be detained again and tortured in the same way.

 

Last year, video emerged of nine Israeli soldiers brutally gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman prison facility. The soldiers were detained, but Israeli far-right extremists, including members of the Knesset, stormed military bases to protest their detentions.

 

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said it had taken the testimonies of ten prisoners who were raped by Israeli guards while they were held in detention.

 

 

However, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club's head of documentation, Amani Sarahneh, said that the number was "not reflective of reality" and that only a very few prisoners had dared to give testimonies, even anonymously.

 

"There are details regarding the process of torture - how they would be creative in torture, how they had a desire to do it, how the prison guards would show happiness that a prisoner was being raped. This is something beyond any description," Sarahneh told Al-Araby TV.

 

"The prison guards would rape the prisoners in front of their colleagues. It was an attempt to break the prisoners as human beings, to end their humanity."

 

 

 

 

One former prisoner from the West Bank, who was raped, who used the pseudonym Ahmed, told Al-Araby TV: "I was raped in a brutal way inside Israeli prisons. They took me away from the section where I was detained to a place I didn’t know. They removed all my clothes and started raping me with a stick."

 

"This was something very, very minor compared to what happened to prisoners from the Gaza Strip, and I am ashamed to talk about it. They would force a prisoner to kneel down on his knees and let a police dog rape him. How can anyone ever forget something like this?" he added.

 

Abdul Fattah Elwi, a Palestinian psychiatrist who had treated four patients who had been raped in Israeli prison, told Al-Araby TV that Israel had used these horrific tactics to inflict psychological terror not only on prisoners but on the wider Palestinian population.

 

"This was partly so prisoners could tell people about what happened, so you and I would get scared. I am talking to you now and to be honest, I’m afraid, because the things happening are there to terrorise us as Palestinian people," he told Araby TV.

 

Over 9,100 Palestinians remain detained in Israeli prisons, including around 52 women and roughly 400 children. Hundreds continue to be held under administrative detention without charge.   - (ANA) -

 

 

AB/ANA/18 October 2025 - - -