Prison Routine

The soldiers came in the middle of the night, beating on the front door and yelling to open up. It was not the first time they had come to this house. This time, they were not accompanied by a bulldozer as they had been in the past. No demolishing of the house as they had in the past.

The last time this happened, in 2018, they came to deliver a subpoena for an interrogation, taking the opportunity to beat the hell out of the entire family, including kids and even an infant. The dad was taken away to administrative detention for no reason other than to inflict some terror into the family’s heart.

After October 7, things have gotten worse. On one occasion, the dad was returning to Hebron from Ramallah and was stopped at a checkpoint. He was snatched out of the car, beaten and made to sit in the cold from 9 pm until 4 am. He was taken to an interrogation place, then taken to the notorious Ofer prison.

He told us that when he arrived in Ofer, he saw a lot of beatings taking place and blood all over the floor. He had to sleep on a metal platform with no mattress and no blanket. It was cold. While there, he was given very little food and was subjected to various kinds of torture. The one he specifically recounted to us was a common practice, he said. Prisoners were taken out to the yard handcuffed to a place where the ground was covered in muddy water. They were forced to lie in the water face down in the winter cold, getting their clothes soaking wet, and got thoroughly beaten. But the worst thing about his 10 month detention, he said, was that he had zero communication with the outside world. So he didn’t know his daughter had been arrested. 

His 20 year old daughter then told us her story. The soldiers barged through the door at midnight one night. They took her 3 older brothers out of the house at gunpoint and when she tried to protect her younger brother, they threw her against the wall and arrested her.

She asked to change her clothes before being taken away and a female soldier said okay, “We’re not like what Hamas did in Gaza.” Another soldier turned to her mother who was holding a baby and said, “How would you like us to put your baby in the oven like they did in Gaza?” Cruel. Two female soldiers with weapons pointed at the daughter accompanied her to the bedroom to change.

She was taken to a military base where she was interrogated, then tied to a chair with her hands cuffed behind the chair, blindfolded, and left there alone for 9 hours. Not allowed to go the bathroom.

Then she too was taken to Ofer. As she entered, she saw a woman getting her head slammed against the wall. They took her to another interrogation officer who told her, “I can do anything I want with you, I have the power. I can take any of your family, you won’t see them for many years. You won’t go back to the university.” He yelled at her a lot.

She was taken to a holding cell with 3 other women. It was December and very cold, so the women, strangers to each other, huddled together. They were there for 12 hours. 12 am - 12 pm. 

She was then taken to another room that had several inches of standing water in it. There, a female soldier ordered her to take all her clothes off. Naked, she was beaten with a metal rod, and told not to scream. The soldier warned, “If I hear your voice, I will tell the men to come in and see you naked.”

After that, she was told to put her clothes back on and taken to a cell with 5 other women, now 6 in all. There were 3 mattresses, 3 blankets, 6 bottles of water. They were given very little food for 24 hours. 

During her full year in prison, the daughter saw a lot of horrors and heard a lot of horror stories about how Palestinians were being treated in Israeli prisons. She said the hardest thing she witnessed was when women from Gaza were brought in. The wore bloody clothes and their hijabs had been stripped away from them. They were given no beds, nothing to clean themselves with. They were given dirty clothes that had been contaminated with lice. When they went to the bathroom, they were taken by male soldiers.

The she told us the story of Oct 7, 2024, the one year “memorial” of the Gazan prison break. An officer entered women’s rooms and gave them 30 seconds to cover themselves before soldiers came in. When the soldiers came, they put zip ties on the women’s hands, blindfolded them, and took them out. They made them lie face down on the muddy ground, beat them, yelled at them, and brought police dogs out to terrorize them. While this was going on, soldiers went into their cells, took all of their clothes, and set off tear gas grenades in their cells. Then they put the women back in their cells.

The dad and daughter both said their prison experiences were not uncommon. They said there is no reason they were targeted, that Israel does this routinely and randomly as a feature of its occupation. Something like this happens to almost every house. It can happen if you post something about the occupation on social media or say anything in public against Israel. Or just for no reason at all. “We are not free to talk about anything,” the daughter said.

The dad said that things have gotten worse since Oct 7, but that Oct 7 is not the reason. It is just an excuse to accelerate the abuse that has been going on for decades.

I asked the two of them how they are doing now. They said they are not sleeping well. They have put cameras up outside their house and wake up at sounds in the night to see if the soldiers are coming back.

I asked if they were afraid. The daughter shrugged and said, “If they will come, they will come.” The dad said, “That’s what they want, for us to be afraid. They want us to leave. We will not fear and we will stay until this occupation is over.

These amazing and beautiful Palestinians will not be beaten into submission.