Three Palestinian teenagers released in a recent prisoner exchange were abducted by Israeli soldiers while seeking aid and tortured in custody, a new report has revealed.
In interviews conducted by the NGO Defense for Children Palestine (DCIP), Mohammad Nael Khamis al-Zoghbi, 17, Faris Ibrahim Faris Abu Jabal, 16, and Mahmoud Hani Mohammad al-Majayda, 17, described how they were abducted by Israeli forces near aid distribution points and transferred to the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp in southern Israel.
They said they endured torture, beatings and starvation in Israeli custody. The trauma has left them unable to sleep, and they are plagued by night terrors and bed wetting.
One of the boys said he felt his detention had “stripped away his childhood”.
Jabal, who was abducted along with his father while seeking aid near the Morag Corridor on 11 September, recalled being so badly beaten during his interrogation that his forehead “split open and required stitches”.
“I felt nothing but pain,” Jabal told DCIP. “I endured those hours without food, water, or even a chance to use the bathroom. Fear gripped me, preventing me from asking for anything, and I often lost control of my bladder during the interrogation.”
All three boys were transferred to the “disco room”, a concrete chamber where they were forced to lie on the floor while speakers blasted Hebrew music for over 12 hours.
16-year-old Jabal recounted how a soldier was playing a game on his phone during the torture. When he lost the game, he would get up and beat him out of frustration.
“I remained in that room until the day’s end, enduring numerous assaults, including having my head slammed against the wall, being kicked, and having my hair pulled.”
On another occasion, an Israeli prison officer showed Jabal a photo of his mother manipulated to look like she was lying alongside an Israeli soldier, falsely claiming that she and his sisters had been “raped and killed”.
When he lashed out at the prison officer, Jabal was hung in cuffs a metre from the ground and repeatedly beaten.
Since his release, Jabal has reported difficulty standing, frequent loss of bladder control and recurring nightmares from which he wakes up screaming.
“I am jolted awake by his screams, and he cowers in fear of being struck, pleading, ‘No, no, please don’t hit me,” Jabal’s mother told DCIP.
‘Prison has stripped away my childhood’
17-year-old Majayda was abducted by Israeli forces while seeking aid at a distribution site run by the controversial Israeli and US-backed agency in Rafah on 7 August.
Majayda recalled that he was blindfolded, beaten and electrocuted by soldiers throughout his interrogation. He was then marked with an “X” on his back, indicating that he would be transferred to prison.
Majayda was also placed in the “disco room”, where he was confined for over 12 hours. He was then transferred to another room where he was stripped and blasted with cold air and left alone for two days.
He was then held in solitary confinement for two days, during which his hands and feet were bound.
“I couldn’t sleep for even a moment due to the overwhelming pain and paralysing fear. At times, I would lose control and wet myself from sheer terror. The metal handcuffs were painfully tight, leaving me powerless.”
The cell was riddled with mosquitoes and flies, and Majayda was suffering from multiple skin ailments, including scabies, but his multiple requests for medical attention were refused.
Majayda also reported that an Israeli intelligence officer proposed that he collaborate with the army as a human shield, offering him a monthly salary of 30,000 shekels (about $9,200).
When he refused, Majayda was thrown back in the “disco room” and beaten.
Back in his cell, Majayda was regularly attacked by dogs and pelted with stun grenades by Israeli soldiers. He said the torture had twice driven him to attempt suicide.
Following his release, he reported that he cannot sleep.
“Each time I shut my eyes, I am haunted by the same location, the same faces, the same cell,” he told DCIP.
“Prison has stripped away my childhood, forcing me to rediscover how to laugh, how to sleep, and how to feel secure.”
‘I could hear the bones in my arm cracking’
17-year-old Zoghbi was captured by Israeli soldiers on 11 July, while seeking aid at a GHF-run distribution point in Rafah, before being transferred to Sde Teiman.
Zoghbi said that during interrogation, his handcuffs were tightened so severely that he could hear the bones in his arm cracking.
The prison guards conducted nightly raids of Zoghbi’s cell, unleashing dogs and launching stun grenades at him and his cellmates at 2am.
“If I failed to wake up during the raid, the soldiers would beat me, and I risked being hit by a stun grenade they tossed into the room,” he said.
After his release, Zoghbi continues to awake at 2am expecting a raid.
“I feel extremely exhausted and struggle to articulate or convey the emotions stemming from my experiences. Each time I recall those moments, I find myself sitting alone and crying.”
DCIP said the boys’ treatment in Israeli custody was “designed to break their personhood and extract false confessions”.
“Israel’s detention of Palestinians has nothing to do with security, law or justice,” the NGO added.
“It is a system designed to physically and mentally scar a generation of Palestinians in an attempt to suppress any attempt to resist Israel’s Apartheid regime or demand that their fundamental rights are upheld.”
It noted that Israel’s systematic torture and detention of Palestinian children constitute breaches of the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.
DCIP further emphasised that, as a state party to the Convention against Torture, Israel is legally bound to prevent, investigate and prosecute acts of torture.
