Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Inside one of the rooms of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the child Mahmoud Zinda near his father Nader. The woes of the past week are still printed on their faces. Their eyes are wide, and they move quickly in every direction.
This was stated in a report published on the Al Jazeera English website, written by Lina Al-Safin and Maram Hamid, which depicts the moments of terror and humiliation experienced by Palestinians who were arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza for days after they were stripped of their clothes, blindfolded, bandaged, and tortured during their detention.
14-year-old Mahmoud and his father were among hundreds of Palestinians who were arrested by the occupation forces on December 5 in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, where they suffered 5 days of torture and humiliation before they were released, without any explanation for their arrest.
They said they would slaughter us all
“One of the Israeli soldiers told me that I looked like his nephew, that his nephew was killed in front of his grandmother, who was held hostage by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and that the soldiers would slaughter us all,” Mahmoud says, trembling.
Before their ordeal, the Zinda family was trapped in their home in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City for two days, and were unable to leave as the occupation tanks advanced and artillery shelling approached. Those who dared to leave their homes for any reason were bombed and sniped in the streets.
Mahmoud and his father, Nader Zinda, were arrested by the occupation, along with hundreds of Palestinian men and children, and were subjected to beatings and torture (Al Jazeera). On the third day, the family, which had slept on the cold tiled floor under the mattresses to protect them from the flying shrapnel that might fall at any moment, woke up to find tanks in their street.
The bulldozer hits the walls
Nader (40 years old) says, “We heard the occupation soldiers screaming and the sounds of the tank getting louder. The house was moving. I realized that the Israeli bulldozer was hitting the walls, and the soldiers were also shooting.”
Nader quickly tore up some white sheets to make small flags for each of his eight children to carry. They took someone out the front door of the house, the bulldozer stopped, and so did the shooting. But suddenly the house was full of Israeli soldiers.
“They made us empty our bags on the floor, prevented us from taking any money or possessions, and threw away what little food we had,” Nader recalls. “They took our money, as well as IDs and phones.”
The occupation army separated the child, Muhammad Odeh, from his family and took him with others to a rice warehouse, where he faced torture for several days (Al Jazeera)
They stripped them of their clothes
The soldiers divided the family: the women and young children in one room and the men and boys in another. Then they told Mahmoud, Nader, his brother-in-law, and another relative to take off their clothes, then pushed them outside.
“They gathered at least 150 men from the surrounding houses and blindfolded and handcuffed us all in the street,” Nader explains.
The soldiers then forced the men to get into trucks, and Nader was sure that Mahmoud was on his lap, and he felt terrified of what they would do to his son if they separated. “I don’t want to lose my child, and I don’t want my son to lose his father,” he says.
The men soon realized that there were also women in the truck, which suddenly stopped, causing the detainees to fall on top of each other.
They blindfolded themselves
Nader continues: “We were all blindfolded, so we couldn’t see each other. We could hear the screams of women and children.”
The truck stopped, and once again, the men and women were separated. The men and children were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a floor covered with scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and insulted. They were left sleepless after taking off their clothes.
Hunger and beating for several days
The child, Muhammad Odeh, 14 years old, was taken from the same Wadi Al-Arayes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood as Zinda, where he and his family remained stuck in their home for 5 days, starving.
Two neighborhood children were killed by Israeli snipers after they left their homes to search for water in the street.
After the bulldozer demolished the walls of many houses, the occupation soldiers dragged the men and boys outside, slapping, punching, and beating them with their weapons.
Muhammad recalls: “There was no opportunity to reach an understanding with them, and they kept saying that we are all Hamas. They wrote numbers on our arms. My number was 56.” When Muhammad extends his arms out, the red writing is still visible on his skin.
A Palestinian who was arrested and tortured by Israeli soldiers for several days shows the number that was written on him with hands swollen from the handcuffs (Al Jazeera). Muhammad continues: “When they spoke to us in Hebrew and we did not understand, they would beat us.”
“They beat me on my back, sides, and legs. They took my family, and I don’t know where they are,” he says, his voice trembling.
They spit on the men
Muhammad recalls that, before they were forced to enter the warehouse, Israeli female soldiers came and spat on the detained men.
In the warehouse, it was common for groups of 5 soldiers to suddenly enter and beat someone while the others were forced to listen to his screams of pain. If any of the men or boys nodded in exhaustion, the soldiers poured cold water on them.
“Their disdain for us was unnatural, as if we were less than human beings,” Muhammad says.
Some of them did not return from the torture sessions
Nader says sadly: “Some of the detainees did not return from the torture sessions. We used to hear their screams and then they would disappear.”
At one point, Mahmoud told his father that his wrists were bleeding from the handcuffs. A soldier heard him and asked him where the pain was and then began to put pressure on it. Nader tried to protect his son, and one of the soldiers tried to drag the child away. When Mahmoud resisted, he was kicked in the face. The mark is still visible.
Mahmoud says: “My father kept shouting at them that I was a child and he threw himself on top of me. I heard a soldier speaking with an American accent, and I told him in English that I was just a child who goes to school, but to no avail.”
Blindfolded and handcuffed at all times, the men and children were subjected to hours of beating, according to the aforementioned testimonies.
Israeli soldiers released about 10 men they had arrested on December 5 (Al Jazeera)
Curses and obscene expressions
Nader, who suffered a particularly painful blow to his head, says: “They cursed us, hurled at us the most obscene expressions, some of them spoke Arabic. Every time you tried to speak, asked to go to the bathroom or wanted a drink of water, they would come and beat us, using the butts of their rifles (M- 16).
The soldiers interrogated them and threatened to kill them all. They accused them of stealing their military vehicles and raping Israeli women.
When they asked Mahmoud about his whereabouts on the seventh of last October, the date of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle, and he answered that he was sleeping at home, the soldiers beat him.
“They have unbelievable racism.” Nader said, adding, “They really hate us. This is not related to Hamas. Rather, it is about the desire to eliminate us all. It is genocide, and US President Joe Biden gave the green light for it.”
They relieve themselves in their places
During the arrest, the men were given only a few drops of water and crumbs of bread. Some were forced to relieve themselves while others were handed a smelly bucket to do so.
On the fifth day, Mahmoud, Nader, and 10 other men were taken to Netzarim, a former settlement south of Gaza City that had been turned into farmland after the 2005 Israeli “disengagement.” It is now an Israeli checkpoint just before the Gaza Valley, and the men detained there were released and requested They head south.
The group took off their blindfolds and let their eyes adjust to the light after days of darkness. They were exhausted, hungry and still without clothes. After walking painfully for two hours, a group of Palestinians spotted them.
Nader says: “They dressed us, gave us water, called an ambulance, and we arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where they gave us intravenous fluids.” “I thought I had no chance of getting out alive,” he adds.
He concludes, “It was hell on earth. It was like spending 5 years in that warehouse. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
#human #beings.. #Children #men #Gaza #narrate #experienced #occupations #detention
2023-12-13 17:08:07
