Muhammad a-Ramlawi

A 30-year-old father of four from Jabalya Refugee Camp, Muhammad recounted the severe abuse, hunger and cold he endured during his detention in Israel:

Before the war began, I lived in the al-Faluja area of Jabalya Refugee Camp with my wife, Islam Badran, 36, and our four children: Mahmoud, 12, Husam, 10, Basimah, 7, and Layan, 4.

When the heavy bombardments began, I left with my family because I was afraid we would be hurt. At first, we fled west to my family’s home in the center of Jabalya Refugee Camp. Later, when the military got closer to the camp, we were displaced again. This time we went to the al-Juron area, which is also near the camp. When things calmed down a bit, we went home. When another invasion of the camp began, we didn’t leave despite the military’s threats and demands for everyone to evacuate. The military deployed robots carrying explosives around our home and blew up entire residential blocks. Eventually, they detonated robots with explosives near the entrance to our house, and the whole house blew up.

I left the house with my wife and children two hours later, and we went to relatives who lived near Kamal Adwan Hospital. Two days later, quadcopters came there and announced on loudspeaker: “We’re going to bomb all the residential blocks. Anyone who stays inside is risking their life.” We had no choice but to leave again and follow a route the military defined as safe. This was on 21 October 2024. We left the house and took the route the military ordered us to take, towards the Indonesian Hospital and from there to Salah a-Din Road, which is to the west of the camp. From there, we went to western Gaza City, where we reached a checkpoint. The military ordered the women to stand on one side and the men on the other. My wife and children crossed the checkpoint and continued walking towards western Gaza City, while I was detained with the rest of the men.

The soldiers ordered us to strip down to our underwear and put on see-through white jumpsuits they gave us. I was interrogated in a building that was almost completely destroyed near the Indonesian Hospital. The interrogation lasted about two or three hours. They asked me where I’d been on October 7 2023, where the hostages were, where the rockets and explosive devices were, and where Hamas and Islamic Jihad members were – things I have nothing to do with. I’m an ordinary Gaza civilian, and I don’t know anything about Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or October 7. They tortured and beat us, to force us to admit to something, anything. As long as we talked.

At night, they put us on trucks. There were a lot of trucks, and they loaded 70-100 people on each one and drove us to Sde Teiman Prison. We were transported like chickens in a cage, blindfolded and with our hands tied.

When we got to the prison, they beat me brutally and really humiliated me. After a week, they took me to a Shin Bet interrogation. On the way there, the soldiers hit and kicked me all over my body. My hands were tied and I was blindfolded. The questions in the interrogation were similar to what they asked in the previous interrogation: whether I’d been part of the attack on October 7, where the hostages were, and where the rockets and explosive devices were. During the interrogation, they beat me, humiliated me and cursed me.

There were 20-25 of us kept in one room. They beat us every time they took us to interrogation or to the doctor. It was very cold and they put a fan on, too. They gave us very little food: a slice of bread with labneh or jam. The soldiers would order us to sit if they saw us standing, and vice versa, or to put our hands on our heads and not speak to the other detainees. It was a regime of enslavement, humiliation and degradation. I was there for a week, and it was a very hard week.

After that, they transferred me by bus to Ofer Prison. There were about 25 detainees on the bus, and there were about 15 soldiers with us, who beat us the whole way there. They took turns and not a second went by without someone beating us, including with batons. They hit us so hard that I wished the bus would flip over. I preferred to die than to continue suffering the beatings and humiliation. When we arrived, I got off the bus with my head and eyes swollen from the kicking, and my back hurt badly from the beating.

From the moment we arrived at Ofer, for about 40 days, my hands were tied. They didn’t take off the handcuffs for a single moment, even when I went to the bathroom. I still have scars from being tied. The conditions at Ofer Prison were even harder than at Sde Teiman: insults, beatings, humiliation, degradation, kneeling for a long time with our hands over our heads. I felt like a slave. I was interrogated by a Shin Bet officer. On the way to the interrogation, the soldiers beat me brutally. The interrogator said his name was “Captain Hell.” It really was hell. He would say to us, “Welcome to hell.”

They wanted to break us. At a certain point, they put me in solitary confinement. There were about 20 of us in the cell, and they would put us one at a time in an isolation cell. On the way there, they beat us very heavily, beyond anything I’d ever known. It was truly unbearable. They hit us on our arms and legs, and sometimes in sensitive areas too. On the way back from isolation they were also extremely violent towards us, and during cell searches.

We were very cold, and they didn’t give us enough blankets. My hands cracked from the cold. The guards would take away our blankets as soon as we woke up, even though we told them we were freezing. We asked them to leave the blankets, but they refused.

We showered once a week, in the evening, in ice-cold water. Anyone who refused to shower was beaten. I would go into the shower against my will, just so they wouldn’t beat me. I preferred to suffer the torture of freezing water than the torture of their beatings.

The meals we got consisted of a slice of bread, soft cheese and jam. It wasn’t even enough for a small child. We would tell the soldiers that the food wasn’t enough for us, or ask for other food, but they refused to give us. I was in Ofer Prison for almost 40 days, days that felt like death. Forty days with our hands tied the whole time, even when we went to the toilet. I couldn’t pray like a human being, and I couldn’t sleep. It was severe torture.

During roll call, we had to stay in the prostrate position, kneeling on the floor with our hands on our heads. They held us like that for two or three hours. Sometimes they would leave us like that even longer, as if they’d “forgotten” us.

There was also a repression unit. They would attack us in the cells, beat us and hurl insults at us. When they searched the cells, they would throw [tear] gas canisters and stun grenades inside. Sick and elderly prisoners were especially afraid every time members of that unit arrived.

They counted us four times a day. They woke us up at 5:00 A.M. by punching us, hitting us with batons and shouting: “Everyone wake up! I don’t want to see anyone sleeping!” They would also swear at us and insult us: “Move it, you donkey! Move it, you dog! Son of a bitch!” I went through 40 days of death in Ofer Prison. Those days felt like 40 years of suffering and torture.

We didn’t have watches, but we prayed before the first roll call, which was at 5:30 A.M. The second roll call was at noon. We figured out the time for al-‘Aser prayers [in the afternoon] according to the sun. The last roll call was at night, at 11:00 P.M. Then we would go to sleep.

After that, they transferred me back from Ofer Prison to Sde Teiman Prison, for more suffering and torture, freezing cold and degrading treatment.

On 27 December 2024, I met Dr. Husam Abu Safiyah, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital. He looked exhausted from the cruel treatment by the military. When we asked what happened, he told us that they’d arrested him at the hospital that day, that some staff members were killed, and that the military had burned the hospital down before his eyes. He cried as he told us what happened. He looked exhausted, and his words moved us. It was clear that he he’d gone without sleep for a long time at the hospital. He told us, “I’ve been humiliated, degraded, I’m finished.”

The next day, I learned that they were about to release me. Dr. Abu Safiyah asked me to contact his wife and tell her to speak with prisoners’ rights organizations and human rights organizations, or with the Red Cross, to give them testimony and get them to secure his release. He also asked me to tell her to take care of his son, Yusef. That was the last time I saw Dr. Abu Safiyah.

On 29 December 2024, in the early morning hours, they called out our names. There were about 25 of us. They put us on a bus, handcuffed and blindfolded. There was an officer there who spoke Arabic. He told us: “Today, you’re being released. We are releasing the prisoners at Karam Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) Crossing, and from there, Red Cross people will take you.”

We arrived at Karam Abu Salem Crossing at around 10:00 A.M. When we got off the bus, the soldier gave each of us a chocolate bar, for the photos of course. Red Cross representatives received us and took us from there to the European Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip.

Now I am in the city of Deir al-Balah, and my wife and children are in Gaza City. They didn’t come to southern Gaza because they have nowhere to live here. I tried to get aid and a tent, but unfortunately, no one could help me. I’m living in extremely harsh conditions, without money, without a phone, without clothes, and without any way to care for even my most basic necessities. Sometimes I sleep at friends’ homes, and it makes me embarrassed and ashamed. I spend all my days at a coffee stand because I have nowhere else to go. Every day, I talk to my family to see how they’re doing.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 15 January 2025