S.L.

24, from Jabalya Refugee Camp in northern Gaza, described undergoing extreme torture, rape and sexual abuse during 22 months in Israeli custody

Before the war that broke out on 7 October 2023, I lived with my parents and my five brothers and sisters in a small house in Jabalya Refugee Camp. We are a poor family, and my father somehow managed to make ends meet despite the hardship everyone here has suffered for many years because of the blockade. Even so, our lives were full of contentment, love and family warmth. Our dreams were simple: to live in dignity and safety, like all human beings. In our home, laughter made it easier to deal with all the difficulties.

I was a young man who dreamed of a better future, like any young man my age. I loved spending time with my family and friends, and I tried to help my parents as much as I could. We lived simply and with hope, not knowing that within a few days our lives would turn into a bloody nightmare full of killing, fear, hunger and humiliation.

At the beginning of the war, fighter jets bombed our area heavily non-stop. Even so, we didn’t leave our home. We woke to the sound of explosions and fell asleep to the sound of screaming and death. There was no safe place left. Houses were destroyed with the people still inside, body parts were pulled from under the rubble, and children screamed in fear and hunger. We lived every moment as if it were our last.

We spent hours inside without electricity, water or enough food. We were afraid even to go near the windows because of the heavy bombardments. The planes were circling the sky all the time, and their sound filled us with constant terror. We were so afraid all the time that we couldn’t tell day from night anymore. The bombings got very close and we felt that death was coming closer to us by the second.

Then the Israeli military entered northern Gaza and put Jabalya Camp under full siege. At the beginning of December 2023, it got even more frightening: tanks surrounded the area, soldiers were deployed in the streets, and the planes kept bombing relentlessly. We were trapped at home, unable to go out or move, and overcome with fear.

On Thursday morning, 7 December 2023, at around 9:00 A.M., the Israeli forces completely surrounded our area, especially near Abu Hussein School. The siege was imposed from all directions, with tanks, planes and soldiers. For two days, we were trapped in the house. We didn’t have enough food or water, and we couldn’t go out. We waited for death to come at any moment. We could hear shooting everywhere, and the bombing continued non-stop. My mother cried all the time, and my siblings were terrified and very distraught.

After two days of siege, the soldiers entered the area early in the morning and ordered everyone to come out of their houses. When we went outside, they pushed people around, shouted at us, cursed us and humiliated us. The soldiers separated the women, girls and children from the men, young and old. They told us the women would be taken to Kamal ‘Odwan Hospital, and they ordered us, the men, to sit on the ground.

Later on, they forced us, in a degrading and humiliating way, to strip down to our underwear. They didn’t spare the older men either. The soldiers shouted and swore at everyone in a vulgar and humiliating manner. At that moment, I felt my humanity was being completely trampled in front of everyone. We sat almost entirely naked in the bitter cold for hours on end, while the soldiers pointed their guns at us, laughed at us and mocked us.

We stayed on the ground until the afternoon, and then the soldiers tied our hands with zip-ties, pulled them tight, tied blindfolds over our eyes tightly and loaded us onto big trucks, shoving and humiliating us along the way. The soldiers beat us throughout all of that.

The trucks drove until we reached the Zikim area by the sea, north of the Gaza Strip. They took us off the trucks and again made us sit for hours on the ground in the bitter cold, almost entirely naked, handcuffed and blindfolded. I was shivering from the cold, from fear and from hunger. We weren’t allowed to talk or move. There were about 50 of us, of different ages, and anyone who tried to move or lift his head was immediately beaten.

After that, an officer arrived with a lot of soldiers, and they started taking down our information one by one. They wrote down our names, ID numbers and phone numbers, and then they took our photos in a very degrading way. They divided us into groups and then gave us thin blankets that didn’t provide real protection from the cold.

Then they loaded us onto a truck again, and this time they drove us to an area with a lot of military prefabs. Later, we learned that we were in a detention facility called Sde Teiman.

The Sde Teiman facility was the start of a very tough period of suffering and constant abuse. From the moment we arrived, still handcuffed and blindfolded, soldiers started beating us. Then they forced us to wear gray clothes and made us walk barefoot on stones that hurt us badly. It was very cold, and I was hungry and exhausted.

After that, they put us in structures where we were held for days on end, handcuffed and blindfolded. They forbade us to sleep, and the soldiers punished and beat anyone who dozed off. The very little food we got was of poor quality, and our access to water was very limited. We were allowed to use the bathroom only rarely.

There were days in that place that we felt we were slowly dying.

After a few days, I was taken in for interrogation, and that was when the most terrible, cruelest torture and humiliation I have ever experienced in my life began. When I entered the interrogation room, the soldiers and officers started shouting and swearing at me, saying obscene, degrading things: “Your mother is a whore, son of a bitch […] we will fuck you and your sisters, motherfucker […] come on, motherfucker, son of a bitch.”

They forced me to strip all the way, in a very degrading way, and I was left naked in front of them. The point was to mentally and physically humiliate me. They laughed at me and mocked me. During the interrogation, I was subjected to extremely degrading sexual assaults. The soldiers deliberately touched my intimate parts and hit them again and again, while cursing me and threatening me: “We’ll fuck you here, motherfucker […] all of us will play with you and rape you, son of a bitch.”

They also beat me hard all over my body, especially in the intimate areas, until I felt my body was being torn apart, it hurt so much.

The soldiers also tied me in the “shabah” position for many hours, completely naked. They tied me up in a very painful way, with my hands behind my back, hoisted up with chains, and left me like that for hours without mercy. Then they lowered me down onto a pole that was fixed to a table, so it went all the way into my anus. The pain was so bad, I started screaming hysterically, begging them to take me off the pole. I told them: “Please, stop, I’m dying; I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I’m dying, have mercy on me. I didn’t do anything.” That happened several times, and I bled from my anus. I felt my whole body was falling apart from the intense pain and extreme sexual torture. They tortured me in a degrading way and touched my intimate parts. Throughout all that, they kept hitting me over and over on different parts of my body, especially in the intimate areas, in order to cruelly humiliate me.

One kind of degrading abuse was being forced to perform humiliating acts against my will. They forced me to hold my penis and play with it while threatening and hitting me. They not only threatened again and again to sexually assault me, but also threatened to cut off my penis with a saw. The soldiers would say: “Your mother’s a whore; we’re going to fuck you. We’ll rape you like a dog and then throw you away.” They would also harass me and touch my body with their hands, with sticks and with batons, while laughing at me, mocking me and saying vulgar and humiliating things. I felt completely helpless, terrified and unable to defend myself or even move, because of the restraints and the ongoing torture.

I was also severely beaten during transfers between interrogation facilities and prisons. They beat us, swore at us and humiliated us inside the trucks all the time, and while they were loading us on and off them. We were also subjected over and over to forced strip searches that were meant to crush our spirit.

During the detention, they also set dogs on us while we were tied up and couldn’t move, to terrorize us. They also gave me electric shocks and deprived me of sleep for long periods. On top of all that, I also suffered from isolation and being totally cut off from the world outside the prison.

Later, I was transferred to Negev Prison, where they moved me between different wings. I was held in very harsh conditions there too. I was hungry and cold, beaten and humiliated daily. After some time, I was transferred from there to Ofer Prison, where I was again interrogated, beaten, humiliated and tortured physically and mentally.

During my time in custody, my health deteriorated a lot. I started to suffer from palpitations, pain and digestive problems. I was also in constant pain in my anus and other parts of my body because of the torture and beatings. I didn’t get treatment. The medical neglect added to our daily suffering in prison.

The months and years in prison passed very slowly, and each day felt like a new torment. I lost my sense of being alive, and lived only in the hope that one day I’d be released and see my family again. I was afraid I would die in prison without seeing my family again or saying goodbye to them.

I was finally released on 13 October 2025. When they told me I was about to be released, I didn’t believe it was happening. I thought I must be dreaming. When I saw my family for the first time after so long, I broke down sobbing. It was a moment that words can’t describe. My family ran to me and held me without saying anything. They kept touching my face, just to make sure I was still alive and standing there.

In the first moments after I was released, I was speechless with shock and tension. I was afraid of the open space and of having people around me.

When I got out, I went to stay with my family in a tent. I’m still living with the aftereffects of the torture, humiliation and severe abuse I went through in the interrogation facilities and prisons. A year and a half after I got out, I’m still suffering from ongoing physical and mental health problems, and have to see doctors over and over because of the pain and complications caused by the beatings, torture and sexual assaults in detention. I especially suffer from relentless pain in my anus. I also have severe psychological disorders, constant fear, difficulty sleeping and recurring nightmares that take me back to what I went through in the interrogation, again and again, in minute detail.

The sexual assaults and humiliations left me with a deep wound that I can’t put into words and can’t forget. I’m still trying to cope with the trauma that completely changed my life and left me hurting and broken. I carry the scars of these difficult experiences in my body and in my soul, and I still need treatment, support and ongoing medical and psychological care because of what I went through during my detention.

* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 25 May 2026