AhlulBayt News Agency: Israeli guards shaved part of a Palestinian abductees’ hair and drew the Star of David on his head before his release, in what Palestinian resistance group Hamas said exposes Israel’s “systematic brutality” against Palestinians held illegally in detention.
Palestinian abductee Musab Qatawi was released on Thursday after three years in Israeli detention.
The Israeli regime released Qatawi alongside Ahmad Manasra, another Palestinian abductee who spent a decade behind bars after being arrested at the age of 13 and suffered similar treatment before his release.
“The moment we were to be released, they brought a rubbish bin, held our heads and put them in while they beat us. [A guard] drew the Star of David on my head,” Qatawi was quoted as saying by media.
Qatawi was being held at the Nafha Prison, where he says he and his cellmates were beaten daily by guards.
“We were severely beaten,” he said. “They insulted us a lot, stepped on us, used dogs against us. It was very hard.”
Qatawi also described a “lack of food, lack of hygiene, diseases”, among other issues.
The Israeli prison guards have been repeatedly using the Star of David, a religious Jewish symbol featured on the regime’s flag, to torture Palestinians.
In August 2023, Israeli forces burned the Star of David on a Palestinian man’s face in the occupied West Bank. The man’s name was withheld for security reasons.
Itamar Ben Gvir, the regime’s security minister, boasted in July that he had made living conditions for Palestinian abductees significantly worse.
“Since I assumed the position of minister of national security, one of the highest goals I have set for myself is to worsen the conditions of the terrorists in the prisons and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law,” Ben Gvir said at the time.
Manasra has also experienced horrific physical torture and psychological intimidation, subjected to harsh interrogation methods that lasted for hours without interruption, leaving him in a state of complete deprivation of sleep and rest.
He developed schizophrenia in solitary confinement and tried to harm himself and others.
Hamas, in a statement on Friday, said that what happened to Manasra is a glaring example of this systematic brutality.
The Gaza-based resistance group also pointed out that the occupation authorities imposed house arrest on Manasra, prevented him from communicating with the media, and barred his family from receiving him, threatening them if they organized any welcoming event.
Hamas described these measures as “sadistic and fascist,” reflecting a “shaky and illegitimate occupation authority,” and constituting a blatant violation of human rights principles.
Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, conditions for Palestinian abductees in Israeli jails have severely worsened.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, there are more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, not including those detained in Gaza during the past 18 months of war.
Israeli prisons are notorious for the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners. United Nations agencies, investigators, and human rights organizations have documented hundreds of cases of arbitrary arrests, inhumane and degrading treatment, torture, and deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody.
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