Mohammad Abu Tawileh's back is covered in red welts as Israeli troops tortured him for several days.— BBC GAZA, Apr 07 (BBC/AFP/Reuters): Palestinian detainees released back to Gaza have told the BBC they were subjected to mistreatment and torture at the hands of Israeli military and prison staff, adding to reports of misconduct within Israel's barracks and jails.
One man said he was attacked with chemicals and set alight. "I thrashed around like an animal in an attempt to put the fire out [on my body]," said Mohammad Abu Tawileh, a 36-year-old mechanic.
We have conducted in-depth interviews with five released detainees, all of whom were arrested in Gaza in the months after Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostage.
The men were held under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, a measure by which people suspected of posing a security risk can be detained for an unspecified period without charge, as Israel set out to recover the hostages and dismantle the proscribed terror group.
The men say they were accused of having links with Hamas and questioned over the location of hostages and tunnels, but were not found to be involved in the 7 October 2023 attacks - a condition Israel had set for anyone released under the recent ceasefire deal.
Some of those freed under the deal were serving sentences for other serious crimes, including the killing of Israelis, but that was not the case for our interviewees. We also asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) if there were any convictions or accusations against the men but they did not respond to that question.
We have seen reports by a lawyer who visited two of the men in prison, and have spoken to medical staff who treated some of them on their return. The BBC sent a lengthy right of reply letter to the IDF which laid out in detail the men's allegations and their identities.
In its statement, the IDF did not respond to any of the specific allegations, but said it "completely rejects accusations of systematic abuse of detainees".
It said some of the cases raised by the BBC would be "examined by the relevant authorities". It added that others "were brought without sufficient detail, without any detail regarding the identity of the detainees, making them impossible to examine".
It continued: "The IDF takes any… actions which contradict its values very seriously… Specific complaints about inappropriate behaviour by detention facility staff or insufficient conditions are forwarded for examination by the relevant authorities and are dealt with accordingly. In appropriate cases, disciplinary actions are taken against the staff members of the facility, and criminal investigations are opened."
The IPS said it was not aware of any of the claims of abuse described in our investigation, in its prisons. "[A]s far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility," it added.
Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, co-director of the Centre for International Law at the University of Bristol, said the treatment the men described was "entirely inconsistent with both international law and Israeli law", and in some cases would "meet the threshold of torture".
"Under international law, the law of armed conflict requires you to treat all detainees humanely," he said. "The obligations relating to the basic needs of detainees are unaffected by any alleged wrongdoing."
The five Palestinians interviewed in depth were returned earlier this year under the ceasefire deal with Hamas - the group that led the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel.
They were among about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees exchanged for 33 Israeli hostages, eight dead and 25 living, some of whom have described being abused, starved and threatened by their Hamas captors.
Female hostages previously released have detailed physical and sexual assaults in captivity. Israel says forensic tests show some of the dead hostages returned in the ceasefire, including children, were killed by Hamas, though the group denies this.
The five released Palestinian detainees all described the same pattern - being arrested in Gaza, taken into Israel to be detained first in military barracks before being moved on to prison, and finally released back to Gaza months later.
They said they had been abused at every stage of the process. More than a dozen other released detainees, whom the BBC spoke to more briefly as they arrived home in Gaza, also gave accounts of beatings, hunger and disease.
Palestinians in West Bank strike
to demand end to Gaza war
Shuttered storefronts lined empty streets in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Monday, as Palestinians held a general strike demanding an end to the Gaza war.
"I walked through the city today and couldn't find a single place that was open," Fadi Saadi, a shopkeeper in Bethlehem, told AFP.
Shops, schools and most public administrative offices were closed across the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
A coalition of Palestinian political movements-including rivals Fatah and Hamas-called the strike to protest what they described as "the genocide and the ongoing massacre of our people".
Hamas fires rockets
at Israeli cities
Palestinian militant group Hamas said it fired a barrage of rockets at cities in Israel's south on Sunday in response to Israeli "massacres" of civilians in Gaza.
Israel's military said about 10 projectiles were fired, but most were successfully intercepted. Israel's Channel 12 reported a direct hit in the southern city of Ashkelon.
Israeli emergency services said they were treating one person for shrapnel injuries, and teams were en route to locations of fallen rockets. Smashed car windows and debris lay strewn on a city street, videos disseminated by Israeli emergency services showed.
Meanwhile, Gaza local health authorities said Israeli military strikes killed at least 39 people across the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
© 2025 - All Rights with The Financial Express
