Isma’il Ibrahim Sha’ban Qarmout (33), married with two children, resident of Jabalia al-Balad, north of Gaza, gave his testimony to PCHR on 01 April 2024.
I lived with my family in a 4-story building of 300 sqms, a house to 5 families of 24 members, including 12 children and 6 women. My 190-sqm apartment was on the first floor and I work as a biomedical engineer.
Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, we remained in our house because our area was dubbed as a “safe zone” according to an interactive map circulating on social media and the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) urging evacuations to our area.
On 19 November 2023, we started hearing the sound of nearby bombings of homes and lands, and the roaring sound of Israeli tanks and bulldozers.
At around 02:00 on 20 November 2023, the IOF called one of the neighbors and ordered him to inform all residents of our area to evacuate, because they would bomb houses there but did not specify any. I took my handbag with 25000 shekels and 5000 US dollars inside in addition to some personal documents and clothes. We were already prepared for evacuation, and during our evacuation, my grandmother with a disability, Faitma Mustafa Qarmout (88), fell on the ground and injured her leg, so we carried her and immediately fled the area. My grandmother later suffered from gangrene affecting her foot and died due to lack of healthcare triggered by the Israeli ongoing aggression on Gaza and the continuous targeting of hospitals. (I learned of her death after I was released as I will explain later.)
Fifteen minutes after the evacuation, Israeli warplanes launched two missiles as we could hear two heavy explosions, so we returned to our homes and was shocked to find my 60-year-old uncle Nayef’s house next to ours was bombed and completely destroyed. The 350-sqm house of 5 floors housed 10 apartments and 9 families of 50 members, mostly women and children. Also, our house has become rickety and uninhabitable while other nearby houses were severely damaged, and others were partially damaged.
At approximately 06:00 on the same day, we decided to go to the south of Gaza through the so-called “safe corridor” designated by IOF during the aggression for the displaced residents of Gaza and northern Gaza heading to the south. At around 08:00, my family and I headed to the “safe corridor” in my golden Daewoo Matiz car, and about 500 meters away from the corridor, I parked near the Kuwait Roundabout and we got out of the car. I was holding my 1-year-old son, Adam, and carrying my backpack with money inside. We went towards the “safe corridor” and the road was uneven and bumpy having many sand berms that had been dug by the IOF. As I approached the Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint, I raised my ID card and kept walking. Suddenly, a soldier called me from behind a sand berm and ordered me to give my son Adam to his mother, Ansaf Nayef Qarmout (28), who was behind me, and to walk towards him. When I was 4 meters away from him, he ordered me to read my ID number. After he verified the number, he ordered me to drop my backpack, but I told him it contained money (25000 shekels and 5000 USD), and he should take it in his custody, but he refused and forced me to throw it, so I did. Later, He ordered me to go behind a sand berm and forced me to strip fully naked. He then ordered me to wear my clothes again and approached me to tied my hands behind my back with a plastic zip tie, blindfolded me, and led me to another sand berm, where there were two soldiers. One of them interrogated me for a few minutes about where I was on 07 October, and whether I am affiliated with Hamas or any Palestinian faction, but I said no. He then told the soldier, “take him and shoot him”, so he took me and threw me on the ground, pulling his trigger and firing 6-7 bullets above my head. I was literally shaking in fear and begging the soldier to kill me. He suddenly kicked me while wearing his boots all over my body, especially on my back, sides and thighs. After about two hours, he left and I remained lying on the ground in shock while being tied and blindfolded. Every two minutes, the soldiers would bring a detainee and throw him next to me. After 4 hours, two soldiers picked me up and threw me at the back of a military SUV, where we were 20 detainees and two of whom were atop me. The SUV then drove us on a bumpy road for an hour and then stopped. The soldiers pulled me out of the SUV and stripped my clothes off by pulling down my pants and taking off my blouse. For whole 7 minutes, I was severely tortured that I could not recognize from where the blows come. I was constantly beaten with their rifles’ butts, feet, and batons. Afterwards, two soldiers held me from my handcuffs and two others from my feet and swung me back and forth about four times and then hit my head into the SUV, causing a bleeding cut in my head. After that, they dressed me and led me to a bus, where there were two soldiers: one in front of me on the bus stairs beating me on my legs and the other from behind hitting my calf (leg) with an iron rod that he could make shorter or longer. At the time, I did not know what to do, should I step forward or backward? and that when the soldier pushed me inside the bus and the other pressed my handcuffs tighter that made me scream out of intense pain. He seated me on the chair and then other detainees, who were tortured like me, got into the bus, among them were elderlies and children of 16 years old. I was not the only one who was subjected to torture as I could see other detainees from under the blindfold and when some of them told the soldiers that they held Canadian and Belgian passports, the soldiers would torture and beat them harder. After about 4 hours, when the bus has become full of 50 detainees, it drove away for an hour, during which, we were beaten on the heads when trying to raise our heads or move to sit in a more comfortable position.
The bus stopped and dropped us off. They then gave me a 1-cm thin mattress and a light blanket. They put us in a barrack divided into two halves, each half can take up to 150 detainees, while the barrack had a flake asphalt flooring, lined with barbed wires and roofed with tinplate. I was forced to kneel while being handcuffed and keeping our heads down. Since my first day, I asked for a doctor because I suffered a chronic stiff neck and the pain got worse due to the severe torture in addition to hand numbness. After 5 days, they took me to a doctor, and I told him what I was suffering from, but he did not give me any medication. Afterwards, they put a plastic tag around my left hand holding a number that I do not remember. It bearing in mind that all the way to the doctor, who was 10 meters ahead, I was being kicked, beaten with batons, and attacked by dogs backwards and forwards.
I was held in the barrack for 20 days, during which, I was interrogated twice and the first one was after 7 days of my detention there. They took me and 6 detainees on a bus 50 meters away and put us in a barrack of 3 caravans. Before entering those caravans for interrogation, I was stripped naked and examined with a metal detector. After that, they forced me to wear a diaper and then my clothes before they tied my hands and blindfolded me.
They put me in a 2×2 caravan with two soldiers, one was sitting on a computer. They seated me on a steel chair, tied one of my hands behind the chair and the other to the chair armrest while my feet were tied as well to the chair legs, and I was unblindfolded. One of the soldiers, whom I think was an officer, began to interrogate me about the neighbors’ houses, where I was on 07 October, and if I knew anyone from Hamas. When I denied knowing anyone from Hamas, he suddenly grabbed my face and forcefully pushed me. The interrogation continued for 5 hours and then they took me out into an area of pebbled floor. Also, while waiting to enter for the interrogation or after it, I was being shackled in the “Shabeh” position, where my hands were tied to an iron bridge above me, and my toes were barely touching the ground in the so-called “waiting barrack”. I remained in that painful position until they finished interrogating other detainees. They returned us later to the barrack in the evening.
The second interrogation was 5 days after the first one during which I was asked the same questions. They left us in the in the barrack for 3 days with our hands tied behind our backs and blindfolded, lying on the gravel floor. The soldiers gave us too little food consisted of a slice of bread with labneh or jam, and water. When I was in the barrack, I wanted to pee, so I asked one of the detainees to help me take off my clothes, and the other detainee next to me helped me to put my clothes on without cleaning myself. This was the same with every detainee, we were helping each other to relieve ourselves in the same place we were in while the soldiers were just watching, mocking us and laughing. On the third day, they took us back to the barracks at around 16:00.
After 10 days of detention, they started daily counting us 3 times a day: at 05:00, 13:00 and 23:30. While sleeping after the count, the soldiers would make loud noises or blast loud music, and when we woke up, they would scream and hit the tin plates, so we would wake up disturbed. The breakfast, lunch and dinner were mainly a loaf of bread with a little labneh spread, and sometimes there might be a tomato or a cucumber shared by 3 detainees. And when asking the detainee, who was appointed by the soldiers to help us, to take us to the bathroom, you would take your turn after half an hour. We went to the bathroom while being handcuffed and blindfolded, noting that there was no water or toilet paper, and only the appointed detainee helped us to take off or put on our clothes.
On the 18th day of detention, at around 17:00, one of the detainees asked to go to the doctor because he was suffering from shortness of breath due to a heart attack, but the soldiers refused and ordered the appointed detainee to cover him. At about 05:00, when we were being counted, the detainee, who asked to go to the doctor, did not stand up, so they ordered the appointed detainee to wake him up, but he was already dead. We then began to shout out loud “Allahu Akbar”, “translated God is Great”, so several soldiers raided the barrack and suppressed us by throwing stun grenades, beating us with batons and unleashing their dogs at us. This lasted for half an hour, after which, they took the deceased detainee whose name we did not know.
Two days later, at approximately 05:00, the soldiers called out 20 detainees, including me, and from the other barrack they called out 20 other detainees. They removed the plastic ties and tied our hands behind our backs and our feet with iron cuffs. They put us on a bus that drove us for 10 minutes. They then dropped us off, removed my blindfold, photographed me, and forced me to kiss the Israeli flag. Afterwards, the soldier blindfolded me again and hit my face against a wall, causing my nose to bleed. Then, the soldiers beat me with iron sticks and plastic brass knuckles (a melee weapon that is fitted and designed to be worn around the knuckles of the human hand to cause unbearable pain) and I was shocked by a soldier’s electric taser baton. The soldiers then threw me on the gravel ground and dragged me all the way to a closed detainee transportation bus called Al-bosta that was 4×2.5 meters long with small holes in its ceiling. In the bus, they made me sit on a chair and constantly beat me, particularly on the head with an iron stick. We were 20 detainees, and the soldiers turned on the air heating, and we started sweating, and then blew cold air and we started shivering. After 2 hours, the bus drove us for three hours, as soon as we got off the bus, the soldiers again beat us with iron sticks. Then they removed the handcuffs but kept the blindfolds and put us all sticking together in a 2.5×2.5-meter cell. Next to the cell, I could see from under the blindfold a sink and a water tap, and after few minutes I went to drink from it until one of the soldiers saw me and kicked me so hard with his foot on my waist that made me vomit. He then dragged me to a room surrounded by barbed wire, ordered me to strip naked, grabbed my genitals and lifted me up, so I fainted. I woke up from the severe beating I had been subjected to while I was unconscious, and this was repeated three or four times, after which, he ordered me to put on my clothes while the beating did not stop.
After putting on my clothes, he tied my hands behind my back with plastic zip ties and blindfolded me. He then dragged to a bus that was 20 meters away where there was an officer who asked me, “how is it going with the intelligence?” and I told him out of fear, “all fine” and he started laughing – I have never been so broken and humiliated ever in my life as that time!- He then forced me into the bus while punching me, and I stayed there for 10 minutes until the bus was full. After Maghrib prayers, they dropped us off in a corridor where the soldiers, one by one, punched and beat us with iron sticks, until we reached the last soldier who had a cutter and removed the plastic ties and blindfolds, ordering us to run forward. As we were running, the detainees there said, “do not worry, there is no beating here”, and then I fainted. The detainees poured some water on my face, and I woke up, but I could not stand up, so they carried me all the way to the tent called “cell 11”, and I learned from them that I was in the Negev prison. My throat was so dry because I was very thirsty, so they gave me water to drink and so did those who were with me. I spent the first night without a mattress, blanket, nor food as we were sticking together while sleeping to warm each other because the weather was very cold.
At 05:00, we woke up to the inmate count, and they gave us breakfast, which was a cup of yogurt, though I do not eat it. Then at 13:00, we had lunch that was a piece of bread and an egg or cheese, and dinner was white rice. From 14:00 to 15:00, they turned on water for us, so we used to fill water in the milk cups and plastic bags of the bread and hide them in the tent grabs since there are not enough bottles in the tents.
After 10 days, they took me for interrogation and asked me the same questions: “Are you Hamas? Do you know anyone from Hamas? and Where you were on 07 October?” After taking my statement, they took my fingerprints and a DNA sample from my saliva, and photographed me. Then, they took me back to the tent. After four days, I became sick for a week and could not stand up due to cramps in my back and knees as the detainees were carrying me to the bathroom. When I asked to go to the doctor, the soldiers refused.
At around 14:00 on 08 January 2024, one of the soldiers came and called 8 detainees out, including me. He took us out of the tent, tied my hands with iron cuffs in front, and blindfolded us. They put us on a bus, which was divided into iron rooms that looked like a closed cell with small holes, as every four detainees were held in one room. After driving us for 5 minutes, they dropped us off a 3×3 cell with a small observation window on the door and a bathroom inside. After an hour, we heard the soldiers calling out the names of detainees who were with us in the tent. We thought they would be released, but they brought them to our cell until we became 20 detainees. Then, they called us five by five, and took us to a room, and checked our names more than once. Afterwards, they took us back to the cell. After an hour, they called out our names and put us in the bus with cells, each three were held in one cell. The bus then drove us away for 5 hours and then dropped us off a doctor, but I fainted right before reaching the doctor because I was fasting and only ate a piece of bread. The doctor examined me as I had low blood pressure and seizures, and he gave me one pill of Relaxone and another of Acamol. They took me back to the very first barracks, so I felt very frustrated because I thought that I would remain in detention while I was blindfolded, and my hands were tied with iron cuffs, kneeling on the ground with my head down from 05:00 till 23:30. At around 23:00, the soldiers came and took us out of the barracks, untied our hands, gave us a grey suit to wear, and tied our hands again, ordering us to sleep at the barrack gate.
At 03:00 on 09 January 2024, the soldiers came, called out 5 detainees, including me, took us out of the barrack, removed the iron cuffs and replaced them with plastic zip ties while keeping the blindfolds. They put us on a bus that drove us for 3 hours, until we arrived at Kerem Shalom crossing at 06:00, and we were 80 detainees, including workers and a woman whom I did not know. The soldiers removed our handcuffs and ordered us to walk forward and never look back. We walked for 2 kilometers and then found an UNRWA bus waiting for us that drove us to the Rafah crossing gate. I took one of the employee’s cellphone and called my family. My brothers: Moussa (28), ‘Issa (26), and Sha’ban (25), who had been all displaced to Rafah, came to take me to my wife and children at Al-Razi Primary School for Girls in Rafah. Meanwhile, my father and mother remained in northern Gaza as they could not leave, and now I sleep every day at a different house belonging to a friend or a relative, who were displaced to Rafah as well, because I do not have enough money to buy a tent and it is not allowed to sleep with my wife at the school.
Filed under: "Israel", Palestine, Palestinian people, UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) | Tagged: Displacement of Palestinians, Hamas Resistance movement, Israeli Occupation Force IOF, Israeli occupation prisons, Kerem Shalom crossing, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Palestinian detainees, Palestinian factions, The District of Rafah, Torture |
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 