AFTER THEY WERE RAPED IN ISRAELI JAILS PALESTINIAN PRISONERS SPEAK OUT

In Exclusive Interviews, Two Palestinians Detained In Separate Israeli Prisons Recount Harrowing Details Of Violent Sexual Assault.

As Sami al-Sai was escorted to a clinic inside an Israeli prison, he could hear screaming from nearby rooms. Prisoners were being tortured.

The Palestinian journalist had heard accounts of abuse in Israeli jails before his arrest in February 2024. But nothing, he said, prepared him for what followed.

After a brief medical examination, a doctor turned to the guards.

“‘Everything is fine. Take him,’ he said,” al-Sai recalled.

Al-Sai was dragged into a separate room, where for nearly an hour he said he was kicked, stamped on, insulted and raped with an object while blindfolded.

Israeli guards watched, laughed and, al-Sai believes, may have filmed the assault.

For more than a year, al-Sai told no one what had happened. Months after his release in June, he decided to speak out.

“It’s difficult to talk about,” he said. “But staying silent is worse.”

Al-Sai said he felt compelled to tell the world what Palestinian prisoners endure in Israeli jails, adding that the sexual assault he suffered was far from an anomaly.

“What I suffered is a drop in the ocean compared with others,” he said.

“It is nothing compared to what I heard from fellow prisoners.”

Al-Sai is now speaking about his experiences as a prisoner on public platforms and to local media in the West Bank. But his interview is the first time he has spoken to international media on camera. Details of his story are being published with his permission.

Another former prisoner, who described how soldiers used a dog to rape him and other instances of violent sexual assault, also agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

This reporting adds further weight to widespread serious concerns about Israel’s systematic mistreatment and use of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.

Earlier this year, a United Nations inquiry accused Israel of using sexualised torture and rape as “a method of war… to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has described the Israeli prison system as a “network of torture camps” within which prisoners were subjected to “repeated use of sexual violence” including “gang sexual violence and assault committed by a group of prison guards or soldiers”.

Last year, Israel’s Channel 12 published a leaked video which appeared to show Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee.

In response to questions, the Israeli Prison Service said it “categorically rejected” the allegations of abuse described by the prisoners.

‘WE WANT TO KILL YOU’

On February 23^rd 2024, Israeli forces raided his home during an intensive arrest campaign in the West Bank following the October 2023 war on Gaza. He was taken from his home and spent the next 16 months in Israeli custody under administrative detention.

Under the controversial practice, detainees are held without charge or trial based on secret evidence they are not permitted to see.

‘The pain was overwhelming. But I still didn’t know what they were going to do. Why did they remove my trousers?’

– Sami al-Sai, Palestinian journalist and former prisoner

After an initial 19 days in military custody, al-Sai was transferred to Megiddo Prison. Upon arrival, he said he was handcuffed and blindfolded.

His first stop was the prison clinic. On the way, he could hear screams from other rooms.

“‘Say long live the Israeli flag,’” he recalls hearing a guard, speaking fluent Arabic, shout at a prisoner. “’We want to kill you. We want to make you die.’

“At that moment, I knew I was entering a stage I had never experienced before,” said al-Sai, who had been arrested by Israeli forces three times before.

Inside the clinic, guards and medical staff accused him of being a member of Hamas, repeatedly threatening him that they “fuck, fuck, fuck” anyone associated with the group. He denied the accusation.

After an electrocardiogram and a brief examination, the doctor told the guards he was fit.

Al-Sai said he was blindfolded again and escorted by four to six guards, including a woman, through a series of corridors. Doors opened and closed. He was finally thrown to the ground.

At this point, al-Sai said, his trousers and underwear were pulled down, and he was ordered onto his knees. The beating began, with the guards striking him repeatedly on the head, back and legs.

“I felt close to death,” he said. “The pain was overwhelming. But I still didn’t know what they were going to do. Why did they remove my trousers?”

‘RECEPTION PARTY’

Moments later, he said, a solid object was forced into his rectum.

“I tried to resist. I clenched my body to stop it. That only made the pain worse. Eventually, I surrendered.”

The object was pushed deeper and twisted deliberately, he said. When he began screaming, a guard squeezed his testicles and pulled his penis.

“I screamed so loudly I thought my voice would leave the prison walls,” he said.

“I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t take it. I reached a point where I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.”

Throughout the assault, guards laughed. One addressed him directly.

“You are a journalist,” the guard said, according to al-Sai.

“We will bring all the journalists and do this to them. We will bring your wife, your sisters, your mother, and your son.”

‘I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t take it’

– Sami al-Sai, former Palestinian prisoner

At one point, he heard a guard say: “Bring me a carrot.” Another object was inserted.

Later, he learned from other detainees that vegetables, sticks and other objects were commonly used during such assaults.

A guard stood on his head with full body weight. Al-Sai feared his skull would burst. He also heard one guard tell another to “stop filming”, suggesting the assault may have been recorded.

“They said they were taking revenge for October 7^th,” he said. “But I am not from Gaza. I am a journalist.”

The assault lasted about 25 minutes, he estimates. He was held in the room for nearly an hour.

Among prisoners, this assault is called “the reception party” – a violent attack involving sexual violence that many detainees face upon arrival at the prison.

Al-Sai did not initially tell other prisoners what had happened to him. Instead, he asked them about their experiences.

He was shocked by what he heard, particularly from detainees from Gaza.

“We had never heard of this level of brutality and sadism,” he said. “Not even in stories or in history.”

He said almost all of the abuse was carried out by Israel Prison Service (IPS) guards. He heard accounts of prisoners raped directly by guards and others sexually assaulted by dogs.