Freed Palestinian prisoners report abuse, torture during Israeli detention

Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons overnight reported abuse and torture while being held, Reuters reported. Many of the freed prisoners arrived in a fragile state in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, and Gaza, with some in need of immediate medical attention.

Eyad al-Saudi, from Gaza, expressed relief at his release, but said his joy is incomplete as many others remain imprisoned in difficult conditions.

“During the first period in jail, we were handcuffed and blindfolded for 90 days, you see no one and no one sees us. And we used to sit on our knees or our buttocks for 18 or 20 hours,” he told Reuters.

“Praise be to God, we feel great, but the joy is not complete, why? Because there are young men who are still imprisoned and suffering. The period of captivity was not just being held captive – it was torture, torture beyond description.”

Alaa al-Bayari, a former Palestinian detainee who has reunited with his family in Gaza City, said he had mixed emotions as his young daughters can barely recognise him.

“I’ve been beaten, they left us under the rain, they kept us naked, they threw water at us, electricity was used against us,” al-Bayari told Al Jazeera, adding that many prisoners picked up diseases while in prison.

“I have seen one of the prisoners who lost eighty kilograms in one year,” he said.