(H. M.), 24-year-old single woman from northern Gaza, gave her testimony to PCHR on 12 February 2024.
On 07 October 2023, when Israel started its war on Gaza, I was so scared of the intense bombing and explosions we were hearing across the city and not knowing where the missiles were falling. At approximately 00:00 on 09 October 2023, I heard a loud and terrifying explosion near our house as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)’s warplanes targeted without a prior warning my sister’s 5-storey house,. As a result, my 13-year-old niece was killed and her brothers, who were moderately injured, were pulled out of the rubble while my sister’s brother-in-law and two of his children were killed as well.
Since the beginning of the Israeli war until 02 December 2023, we stayed in our house not leaving it for 60 days due to the intense bombing pounding our neighborhood. We could hardly get salty water amid no access to potable water and scarcity of food, we could only eat lentils and pasta. We had enough flour to make saj bread and cooked food on fire. We spent most of the time at home and only left when necessary to bring water.
In the morning of 03 December 2023, IOF indiscriminately intensified their strikes and fire belts. Their warplanes targeted the nearby residential buildings and entire residential squares, enticing fear among us. At that time, we decided to evacuate to the south through the so-called “safe corridor”. Before leaving our house, the house next to us was warned to be bombed. We had waited for half an hour until the house was bombed. At 09:00 and under heavy bombardment, we left the house. My mother, my sister, her children and I took a cab that drove us to the Kuwaiti roundabout and we paid the driver 150 shekels. On the way, I saw the massive destruction in houses and markets. We walked the rest of the way until we reached Netzarim checkpoint (the safe corridor), where we could hear the terrifying sound of clashes and see a large number of Israeli soldiers and snipers stationed. When I arrived at the checkpoint, there were around 7 persons. While passing by the Israeli soldiers, an Israeli soldier called me via a loudspeaker as I was about 8 meters away from the soldiers. I obeyed the orders and walked towards them who were stationed behind sand berms. When I was about 2 meters away from them, an Israeli soldier told me to open my ID card, give him its number, and throw away all my belongings. I was carrying my handbag and had 2,000 shekels, my A9 cell phone and my mother’s A9 cell phone inside it. After that, the soldier ordered me to go to the other sand berm. I told him that I had my mother’s medicines with me and she is an old woman, but he responded that my mother went to the south. I screamed out loud: I want to see my mother. Then, a female soldier approached me, pushed me, tied my hands with plastic-zip ties in front, tied my legs with steel cuffs, blindfolded me, and ordered me to walk. Whenever I stopped, the female soldier would shout at me and push my back with her gun’s muzzle. I fell on the ground, and she forcefully pulled me from the plastic-zip ties, which were hurting my hands, and insulted me. I was then taken to a tent, where I was untied and unblindfolded. The female soldier searched me and ordered me to take off my clothes, except for my underwear. I first refused to take off my clothes, but then the female soldier pointed her weapon at my head, pulled the trigger and told me, “I will kill you.” After taking off my clothes, the female soldier shouted at me to wear them quickly. She then took me to a sand berm and few minutes later, I was taken to a tent, where there was an investigator who introduced himself as a Shin Bet officer. He asked me about the Israeli hostages, my four brothers and if there were surveillance cameras in our area. I told him I know nothing and then an Israeli soldier pulled a wooden stick from a cupboard in the tent and hit me on the back of my head near my neck. The investigator then told the soldiers to arrest me. They threw me on the ground forcing me to sit with my head between my knees from 10:00 to 18:00 in a yard fenced with barbed wires while my hands were tied with plastic-zip ties in front and my feet were tied with steel cuffs. Despite being blindfolded, I could see from under the fold other women detained with me. At around 19:00, they took me to a room with a pebble floor while I was still handcuffed and blindfolded. I could see a dead body lying next to me and there were a lot of flies biting me. Whenever I moved, the female soldier would push me with her weapon’s muzzle. The female soldiers were speaking some Arabic and insulting me with the worst swears.
An hour later, an armored personnel carrier arrived and the female soldier forced me to get into it. I was trying to remove the fold from my eyes to know where I was, but the carrier was completely closed and I could not see anything. The carrier drove us for an hour and a half, during which, it stopped many times. At 03:00, we arrived, and the female soldiers took me to a closed tinplated caravan and searched me. There were two female soldiers in front of me and another two behind me. Whenever I refused to take off my clothes, the female soldier would point her gun at my head and push it. And each time I refused to take off a piece of my clothes, the female soldier would hit my back with her gun’s butt. After taking off all my clothes (left naked), the female soldier took off the necklace around my neck and the ring in my finger. And when she tried to take the earrings off, she could not so she brought a pliers to cut the earring off and took them. After that, she took my ID card and put me in prison.
Hours later, the female soldiers came, took me out of prison and searched me. They took all my clothes and gave me only a gray pajama to wear it without my underwear. They then put a plastic tag around my wrist with a number, and another tag on my foot with a number for my belongings placed in “safe custody”. After that, we were taken to an open prison surrounded by a fence and they gave me a light and small mattress and one blanket. For breakfast, they gave us one slice of toast, a very small pack of labneh or one tomato. When we went to sleep, the female soldiers woke us every ten minutes to count us, so we could not sleep.
At approximately 08:00, I was taken for interrogation and returned to prison at 20:00. A male officer and a female soldier were interrogating me in a place like a caravan, where there was a chair with a wood base and steel hand rest and legs. My right hand was tied to my right leg with steel cuffs. I asked the officer where I was, and he answered, “You are in Antut prison.” He then asked me where I was on 07 October, and if I knew the whereabouts of the Israeli hostages or knew any of the persons who broke through Israel’s borders on 07 October. The officer also asked me if any of my relatives or brothers did cross into Israel that day, but I kept telling him that I do not know. When the female soldier did not like my answer, she would hit my head hard on the table while the officer was telling me that the female soldier’s shoes are better than you. They insulted me a lot with the worst words. Once the female soldier took off my shoe and slapped me with it on my face while laughing at me.
The soldier showed me photos of our house on a screen and said, “If you do not answer the questions, we will bomb your house.” After about 15 minutes of interrogation, they turned on the fans at me while my right hand was still tied to my right leg with steel cuffs and I was blindfolded. There was a camera in front of me. While I was inside the caravan, I could hear screams of someone being tortured nearby, or the soldiers were playing a sound like that on a loudspeaker just to frighten me. After 4 hours, I started screaming loud out of severe pain in my hands and I could not move my back as it got stiffened due to the very cold weather and fans directly pointed at me. The soldiers came quickly and asked if I was diabetic and I said yes. One of the soldiers then asked me to calm down and untied me. My hands were swollen and turned blue as the cuffs were very tight.
After that, they took me back to a prison that looked like a caravan, where female and male soldiers were heavily deployed around it and I was with 5 other female detainees. I was the only untied detainee as the soldiers appointed me to help other detainees because I knew English. The other detainees were handcuffed and blindfolded all day and night sitting with their heads down to the ground even when they were sleeping. If one of the detainees tried to raise her head or talk with another detainee, the soldiers would point their guns’ laser at her forehead.
When I asked for pads for the female detainees, who all had their period at the time, the soldiers would give me only one pad for each detainee. When I asked for more, they would refuse. Meanwhile, the food in the morning and evening was only labneh and bread.
On the fifth day, the soldier called our names. After that, the female soldier called me to tell the other detainees if they wanted to use the bathroom because we will go somewhere far away. I thought that we would be released. I helped each detainee to go to the bathroom, because their hands and legs were tied. The soldiers then tied my hands with plastic-zip ties in front and tied my legs with steel cuffs to another detainee’s leg. The cuffs were very tight and painful, as if my leg would be cut off. A bus then drove us for around four hours to Damon Prison and I was trying to remove the fold to see where we were. And when one of the detainees raised her head, a soldier attacked her and pointed his weapon at her head, but another soldier stopped him. They then dropped us off and removed the ties and blindfold. Two female soldiers then escorted me to a small corridor, ordered me to take off my clothes, and searched me. We were separately searched and then taken unhandcuffed to a room, where there was a bathroom with toilet paper and a water tap. There were only 5 beds in the room and we were 10 detainees, so the rest had to sleep on the floor. They gave us a 15-minute break to take a shower or have a walk. There were cameras everywhere, and they counted us 4 times a day, denying us to sleep. Among the detainees was 81-year-old Fahima al-Khaldi who had been arrested from an elderly nursing home in al-Zaytoun neighborhood. The food was very bad, we had 3 meals a day: labneh and toast slices for breakfast, uneatable rice and spoiled soup for lunch, and a burnt egg and bread for dinner. And if any of us refused to eat, they would throw the food in the garbage.
Four days before being released, they took me for interrogation while my hands were tied with steel cuffs, and I was interrogated for half an hour. After that, they took my fingerprints and my toeprints and then inserted a wooden stick in my throat (I think they took a sample of my saliva). I asked female detainees from the West Bank about why they did that, and they said that I would be released. At about 13:00 on Thursday, 18 January 2024, they took us one by one into a small room, where a female soldier ordered me to take off my clothes and searched me. She then ordered me to wear my clothes again and took me to another room, where they took my fingerprints again. Afterwards, they tied my hands and feet and forced me onto a closed microbus with wire mish only to allow air in, so I could not see anything. The bus drove us for about 4 hours, while cold air was coming in all the way. They then dropped us off a detention facility while I was still blindfolded and standing back to back with another detainee. They put us blindfolded in a cage and untied my legs and hands. I slept on a very light mattress and blanket, and we were shivering due to the bitter cold weather.
On Thursday, 18 January 2024, a day before my release, they took my palm prints and ordered me to sign a paper. I asked the soldiers why they did that, and they responded: “it is none of your business.” We took clothes from the West Bank detainees who were with us in the same prison. The next day, at approximately 05:00 on Friday, 19 January 2024, male and female soldiers came, woke us and told us to get ready. After about half an hour, they tied our hands in front, blindfolded us, and took us to a big bus, where there were young male and female detainees. The bus drove us for more than 3 hours and then stopped at the Kerem Shalom crossing, as other detainees told me. They dropped us off, removed the ties and blindfolds, gave me only my ID card and my gold ring, and ordered us to walk. We then ran for 200 meters and took the wrong road, so the soldiers opened fire in the air. We stepped back and took the other way, walking 100 meters to find two UNRWA vehicles. They drove us to a tent 200 meters away to the west. There were employees from the Red Cross in the tent, offered us food and drinks and gave me 200 shekels. They brought us to al-Taif Preparatory Boys School shelter in the Saudi neighborhood in Rafah, where I stayed with five other women, including those who had been detained with me. We are staying under the staircase and only eat canned food for a meal a day. Some people gave us money and we bought a bag of flour. Later, I reunited with my mother. All what I had been through in detention have taken a toll on my mental health. Every day, I recall the detention, interrogations and torture. I hope that this brutal war will end soon so that we can live in peace and safety.
