Testimony Date: 20 August 2025

I am Enas Ahmed Abdel-Fattah Badwan, 32 years old. I studied Primary Education and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in the field. I lived a normal life with my family in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, dreaming—like other young women—of a stable life filled with safety and peace. But the war that erupted after 7 October 2023 completely altered the course of my life.

When the Israeli military assault began, just four days of heavy shelling on our area forced my siblings and me to flee our home. We took refuge with the Abu Othman Al-Sarhi family, whom I had met during Umrah in Saudi Arabia. We moved into their house near the Latin Monastery School in Gaza, trying to shield ourselves from the relentless bombardment.

On 8 December 2023, Israeli forces invaded the area, surrounding the house for a full week. We lived in continuous terror—artillery shelling all around, heavy machine-gun fire encircling the home, and smoke grenades thrown inside causing suffocation and fainting. We were completely cut off—no communication, no way of knowing if anyone outside even knew we were alive. They were pitch-black days, each moment feeling like death was closing in on us.

On the morning of Friday, 15 December 2023, after seven days under siege, we raised white flags, hoping to leave in peace. But as soon as we stepped out, we were all arrested—eight women and four men. Among us was a young woman suffering from epilepsy who urgently needed her medication.

We tried to explain that we were civilians and that a patient required her medicine, but from the very first moment, the soldiers treated us with brutality and humiliation. The men were separated from us and stripped of their clothes, including their undergarments. As for us women, we were forced to partially remove our clothing in front of male soldiers—no female soldier was present. They raised our underwear, pointed their rifles at us, and laughed mockingly. They ordered us to lift our tops, pull down our trousers, and spin around in a degrading, humiliating position. Even Umm Othman Al-Sarhi, who was veiled, was forced to remove her niqab, then ordered to lower her trousers at gunpoint. It was deliberate degradation—a violent violation of human dignity, etched into my memory as an unhealed wound.

After this humiliating search, the men were taken to a neighbouring house for interrogation while we were returned to the Al-Sarhi home. Then the Israeli forces began seizing personal property—$600,000 in cash and 1.5 kg of Saudi gold belonging to the Al-Sarhi family—along with the epileptic daughter’s medicine stored in the same bag. When her father pleaded with soldiers to retrieve her medication, they coldly refused, claiming the bag had been sent to Israel.

They also confiscated my personal bag containing $400, 200 shekels, two ATM cards—mine and my father’s—and my mobile phone, which remains in their possession. The young woman’s health deteriorated badly without treatment, yet the soldiers refused to relent—even when she begged to use the bathroom, permission was granted only after much pleading.

Soon after, the soldiers began interrogating us: “Why are you in this place?” They then dragged me to the fifth floor for questioning, violently and accompanied by a muzzled attack dog that lunged at me until the officer pulled it back at the last moment. Terror gripped me—I was certain they would execute me on that floor.

Inside one of the apartments, a masked Israeli officer—speaking both Arabic and English—began questioning me in a harsh, threatening tone. He shouted constantly, demanding my name, my siblings’ names, and my family’s whereabouts. Then he asked bluntly: “Where is Sinwar?” I replied that I did not know.

Later, another masked officer arrived, introducing himself as “Mousa.” His voice was sharper, his tone even more severe. He opened with a chilling phrase: “Since October 7, 2023, we no longer believe in God.” Then he launched into questions about local residents, neighbours, and anyone who might have taken part in the events of October 7. He asked specifically about my 25-year-old brother—whether he had participated. I told him no. He demanded to know where I was on that day. I said: “I was asleep.” He also asked what I had seen on social media and whether I had posted anything. I confirmed I had not.

They seized my phone and insisted on the password—it is still with them. They forced me to try calling my brother, but the call did not go through. I silently thanked God. Throughout, I kept my gaze on the floor, too terrified to meet the officer’s eyes. He shouted: “Lift your eyes! Look at me! I want to see your eyes!”

Amid this intimidation, the officer threatened me in horrifying detail:

“We’ll have ten men rape you. We’ll imprison you. We’ll kill you and your family. We’ll bring the house down on your heads.”

His words were like knives. I felt death was imminent and that his threats might be carried out at any moment. The interrogation lasted three full hours—yet felt like thirty years. My mind went blank; I lost the ability to think or comprehend.

Throughout, I heard the screams of young detainees from other floors, the sounds of dogs attacking, and soldiers beating them with rifle butts. The officer occasionally left to eat, while I sat trembling in fear. He appeared to be in his thirties, spoke Arabic with a Druze accent, and jotted notes in a notebook during the session.

One of his questions was: “Why didn’t you go south?” I could only answer with silence. When the interrogation ended near sunset, they escorted me down. I could not believe I was still alive. I was utterly exhausted—physically and mentally—my head heavy with the trauma of those three hours that felt eternal.

Afterwards, an Israeli officer ordered his soldiers to each take a woman by the hand and lead us outside. The sight was horrifying—nearly 200 Israeli soldiers surrounded the area. They brought the men and youths down with us, forcing us to march ahead of them as human shields while the army followed behind, fully armed.

We marched until we reached the Al-Shuja’iya area, near Big Market beside Al-Yazji Bakery. There, we were made to sit on the ground. They asked if we were hungry, then gave each of us a piece of stale bread. I tried speaking English with them, but before I could eat, I was summoned. The officer was holding an iPad with a list of names. I saw my name marked in red. I asked: “Where will you take me? Are you going to kill me?” He replied: “We’ll see.”

I saw the three Al-Sarhi boys blindfolded and handcuffed. They led us all together, leaving their father, mother, and sick sister behind. I was the only one whose eyes were not blindfolded, yet I was made to walk beside the three young men. My shoes came off along the way, and I had to walk barefoot over rough, stony ground, surrounded by soldiers.

We continued walking long distances, repeatedly sitting, while tanks circled around us—heightening the sense we were being led to execution. Along the way, I saw military trucks carrying water crates, tanks lined up, and heavily armed soldiers.

All I could think of was death—feeling it close, certain I would be executed without my family ever knowing where I had gone or what had happened to me. Exhaustion overtook me, and I dozed off briefly while sitting on the ground—until a soldier’s heavy blow to my back jolted me awake. It was past 2:00 a.m. That brief sleep—though abruptly ended—was a fleeting escape from a nightmare that had not yet ended.

The Israeli army ordered us to keep walking, and we marched long distances through the streets of Al-Shuja’iya, not knowing which routes they were taking us through. The streets looked as though an earthquake had struck them—nothing but rubble and demolished houses with no clear landmarks, as if the city had been wiped off the map.

While we walked, I heard one soldier speak in English to his colleagues, saying: “Kill them all.” My heart trembled. I began reciting the Shahada and verses from the Holy Qur’an, raising my hands in silent prayer, pleading with God to save us from their hands.

After a while, an armoured personnel carrier arrived. The soldiers forced the three young men from the Al-Sarhi family to climb inside, beating them harshly as they did. One soldier then took a shirt from one of them and tied it over my face to blindfold me. Then it was my turn. They arrested me violently, shackled my hands tightly, and hurled degrading verbal threats at me. I was in severe psychological shock—especially as a young, unmarried woman, subjected for the first time in my life to such humiliating, forced arrest. Finally, they shoved me into the armoured vehicle.

Inside, we were crammed together while the soldiers struck our heads repeatedly. It was close to three o’clock in the morning, and we were utterly exhausted—physically and emotionally. But when the soldiers noticed that some of us were dozing off from sheer fatigue, they screamed in our faces: “Don’t sleep! The road is long!”

Sitting inside the vehicle was a torture of its own. The restraints paralysed us, leaving our tired bodies no comfort or relief. My legs cramped severely, my entire body went numb, and I tried shifting slightly from side to side to ease the pain. But the soldiers were watching every move. Whenever they noticed us trying to adjust ourselves, they would shout terrifyingly: “Don’t move!”

In those moments, I clung to my prayers, repeating the supplication of Prophet Yunus: “There is no god but You; Glory be to You! Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers.” I truly felt as though I was inside the belly of the whale—but perhaps the belly of the whale would have been more merciful and safer than where I was with the Israeli army.

Suddenly, after a long journey, the vehicle stopped. They ordered us to get out, and the soldiers began uttering words as cold as blades: “Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Israel.”

As dawn approached, we reached an area near the sea—the ground was sandy—and I later learned it was the Zikim area. A female soldier removed the shirt from my face, replaced it with a blindfold, and we were taken—myself and the three young men—into a tent. They told us to sleep. Then they brought us wet blankets, and despite being soaked, we had no choice but to cover ourselves because of the freezing cold—the temperature felt close to the forties (Fahrenheit). We managed only three fragmented hours of sleep, shivering violently to the point where I thought my heart would stop from the cold.

While we were inside the tent, soldiers nearby amused themselves by acting out scenes of our execution—as though enjoying one more performance of terror for our benefit.

Later, a female soldier took me by vehicle, forcing me to sit in a back-breaking position with my head lowered, forbidden to lift it. I remained in this painful posture for nearly three hours on the road, on the verge of collapse from physical and emotional exhaustion.

When the vehicle finally stopped, I was taken to a place inside a zinc-lined container, where female soldiers were stationed. They ordered me to change clothes, handing me a light grey tracksuit, then re-blindfolded me.

I was then taken to a doctor for a blood sugar and blood pressure check. My pressure was critically low due to three days without food or water, compounded by my shattered mental state. The doctor told me to drink water, and I mustered the courage to ask him for some, but he simply replied that they would transfer me to a place where food and water were available.

Afterwards, they placed me in another vehicle and transported me to Anatot Detention Centre in Jerusalem, where I stayed for three full days. The detention site was nothing more than a wide, open space surrounded by barbed wire, with a zinc roof and metal sides—like an animal pen.

Upon arrival, they removed my blindfold, and I met seven other women from Gaza. Conditions were unbearably harsh—piercing cold, an open space without proper shelter, sleeping on a wooden platform with a thin mattress and a small blanket that offered no protection from the frost.

I spent three days there, which felt like thirty years. My hands were shackled at the front the entire time, and I was dressed only in a light tracksuit that did nothing against the cold. From the first moment, I was starving, having gone three days without food. When they finally brought us a meal, the entire scene was humiliating.

A soldier placed the food at the door, and a shawish—herself handcuffed—had to pick up the box and place it on the table. The meal consisted of a little labneh, yoghurt, a bread roll, and an apple.

Even while eating and drinking, I was forced to remain shackled. When I needed to use the toilet, I was escorted there in chains. This psychological humiliation was worse than hunger and cold combined.

After eating a little, I dozed briefly on the wooden platform, my body trembling violently from the bitter cold. Even with my eyes shut, sleep was impossible—my shackled hands restricted movement, and the cold gnawed at my weary body.

On the second day at Anatot, I woke up in poor health. I was vomiting, dizzy, and felt my body had frozen completely. I could not stand; everything around me was spinning. One soldier noticed my state and brought me an extra blanket and a bottle of water, but it was not enough to stop my physical breakdown.

To make matters worse, my menstrual cycle began, and the detention centre had no sanitary pads. I asked the female soldiers repeatedly, but the request was met with humiliation. Some gave me only one pad, others two at most, while some refused altogether, hurling insults and degrading words that stripped away human dignity.

Each trip to the bathroom was a battle; I would try to slip my hands free of the shackles momentarily to manage, then return them to place. The lack of privacy, dignity, and basic hygiene was unbearable.

I spent three full days at Anatot—three days of relentless cold, hunger, illness, humiliation, and repeated degradation. On the fourth morning, a bus came to transfer us. Our hands and legs were shackled with iron cuffs over plastic ones, doubling the pain. We boarded the bus early in the morning, remaining there until late evening—a gruelling journey.

On the way to Damon Prison in Haifa, we were forced to keep our heads bent down, forbidden to raise them for even a moment. At every slight movement, soldiers struck us on the head with rifle butts, hurling curses and insults. The beatings continued the entire way, leaving us dizzy and faint by the time we arrived at Damon Prison.

Our eyes were still blindfolded, our hands and legs shackled, until they were finally removed upon arrival. Female soldiers then subjected us to a strip search—despite my informing them that I was on my menstrual cycle, they insisted I remove all my clothing.

Afterwards, we underwent a short interrogation lasting only a few minutes. Their questions were cold and indifferent—my name, age, hair colour, phone number, Facebook password, and whether I had posted or seen anything on October 7. I told them I was asleep that day, had seen nothing, and posted nothing. They seemed unconvinced but indifferent. Then they took us for prison ID photographs. Even my scarf, which had fallen along the way, was not returned.

After the interrogation, we were escorted to the prison yard. There we were met by two detainees from the West Bank—Aya Al-Khatib and Tamara Abu Luban from Jerusalem—who were later released in a prisoner exchange deal. They welcomed us like sisters, assuring us that we were not alone, and arranged our placement in cells with the other detainees.

For a moment, I felt I could finally catch my breath—but it was short-lived, for the unknown still loomed ahead.

Inside Damon Prison, conditions were harsher than I had imagined. There were 68 detainees, including minors and elderly women—one 85 years old with Alzheimer’s, another in her sixties whose blind husband had been executed before her eyes when soldiers stormed her home. Among us were young girls like Taqwa Abu Al-Kheir (15 years old) and another from the same family, also under fifteen—both released after 45 days of this ordeal.

We were all deprived of medical care and treatment, denied access to necessary medication even in cases of severe illness or during menstruation. The food was scarce and of poor quality: our breakfast consisted of a small container of yoghurt (shamenet) and either a tomato or cucumber; lunch was a spoonful of rice or bulgur with a little soup, and sometimes a piece of sausage. It was never enough, and we remained hungry all the time. Over the days, we all developed intestinal illnesses and haemorrhoids due to malnutrition.

We were subjected to sudden night raids that spread terror and drained our bodies, as soldiers conducted surprise searches, accompanied by physical assaults and degrading insults with racist undertones. We were forced to undergo DNA testing without any explanation, a procedure applied only to the girls from Gaza, which filled me with deep fear and anxiety.

The water was heavily chlorinated, and the bitter cold gnawed at our bones without any means of heating. I would go out daily for the one-hour break, mainly to shower and make use of whatever soap, shampoo, or spare clothes were available from other detainees. Yet, despite these small breaks, the nights in prison were long—laden with fear, hunger, cold, and humiliation.

No one in my family knew my fate, nor did I know if I would ever leave this place alive. I spent fifty days in Damon Prison, preceded by three days in Anatot Detention Centre, and throughout that time I lived under the heavy burden of worry and anxiety for my family, who had no knowledge of my whereabouts. My thoughts were consumed day and night by my mother, father, brothers, and sisters. I desperately searched for any way to send them a message that I was still alive.

Inside the detention facility, the rules were strict: no access to lawyers, no information about our fate. We lived in total isolation, tortured daily by the waiting, consumed by thoughts of an uncertain future. I clung to the Qur’an and prayer, spending long hours weeping, praying, and at times, sleeping just to escape the crushing weight of my thoughts.

Despite everything, we detainees tried to create moments of relief amidst the surrounding harshness. We gathered together, sang national songs, recited chants, and sometimes cried. Contradictory emotions mingled in the cell—fleeting moments of joy drowned in a sea of fear and anxiety.

We constantly asked ourselves: Why were we arrested? What charges are being brought against us? How long will we remain here without trial? I was deeply afraid that this ordeal could go on indefinitely.

On 1 February 2024, after fifty days of detention, I was released with a group of prisoners through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

On that fiftieth day, while still in detention, an Israeli soldier entered the room at around 1:00 a.m., called our names—mine and the seven others with me—and moved us to another area inside the detention facility. They shackled our wrists and ankles, forcing our hands behind our backs, and placed us with other detainees before taking us onto a bus.

The journey was long and exhausting, physically and psychologically. The soldiers hurled insults at us, using vulgar and degrading language throughout the trip. We asked for water, but they refused. We finally arrived at the Kerem Shalom crossing around 7:00 a.m., where we were met by the Red Cross and UNRWA staff, who provided us with phones to call our families and reassure them. For the first time in a long while, my family learned of my whereabouts, after having no news of me throughout the entire period of detention.

Upon reaching the crossing and feeling the first taste of freedom, I forgot my pain and suffering; most importantly, I felt I had finally reached my family. Yet I was saddened that the war was still ongoing—I had believed, while in prison, that it would be over by the time of my release. I was also struck by the painful reality that I could not return to my home in Al-Zaytoun, Gaza.

After my release, we stayed in Rafah until the invasion in May 2024, then were displaced to Al-Bureij to stay with my sister until we could return to Gaza.

Today, I suffer from severe psychological disorders, including insomnia, recurrent nightmares, constant fear of being arrested again, and a state of ongoing isolation. I feel constantly threatened and monitored, with an overwhelming sense of helplessness. I no longer feel safe, even among my own family, and I have lost the ability to express my emotions naturally. Even after my father’s death, I was unable to cry.

Following displacement, I lost all privacy and have been living under harsh conditions, including shortages of food, water, basic clothing, and hygiene supplies. This has caused a nervous breakdown and severe depression. Although I was a naturally calm person, I have become irritable and prone to frequent emotional outbursts, accompanied by constant fear that the Israeli army may come for me again. This fear dominates my thoughts, causing persistent insomnia and nightmares.

I hope to leave Gaza to receive psychological treatment abroad, as I have still been unable to cry or express my emotions—even after my father’s death on 14 January 2025. I have suffered intense emotional breakdowns, depression, and social withdrawal, especially since our latest displacement from Al-Zaytoun. I now live with friends, feeling my privacy is stifled, which has only deepened my psychological and physical suffering.

During our last displacement, we were unable to take any of our clothes. I have neither outerwear nor undergarments and no source of income to buy personal necessities such as sanitary pads, which I urgently need. Nor do I have the resources to purchase flour or other essential supplies. We lack access to clean drinking water, and I have no proper shelter, turning my daily life into an unending ordeal.

Detention has completely altered the course of my life, stripping me of the most basic rights to live in dignity and safety, leaving me a witness to the scale of violations committed against Palestinian women inside Israeli detention facilities.

Detention was not merely about iron shackles; it was a series of psychological threats, including death and rape threats, planting a deep fear within me that lingers even after my release. I call for full justice—not only for myself but for all Palestinian women who have endured similar violations—through access to psychological care, guarantees of protection and safety, and the restoration of fundamental rights and human dignity.