Gaza – The Palestinian Abeer Ghaben, from the northern Gaza Strip, who was released a few days ago, recounted shocking details of the conditions of arrest, detention, torture, and the investigation methods followed by the Israeli army from the moment of arrest until release.
Ghaben, a mother of three children (two boys and a girl) ages 9, 7, and 5, revealed in an interview with Anadolu correspondent that she was subjected to naked, repeated, and harmful searches during her detention, which lasted 63 continuous days.
Ghaben (39 years old), from the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, was arrested after the Israeli army bombed the Al-Fakhoura School, where she took refuge with her three children and others.
On October 27, the Israeli army began a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, and since mid-December 2023, it began gradually withdrawing from areas in the northern Gaza Governorate, followed at the beginning of last January by partial withdrawals from neighborhoods and areas in the Gaza Governorate.
The army renewed its incursion into some areas in the Gaza and North governorates in mid-January to carry out rapid operations before withdrawing from them. It changes the locations of the incursion from time to time while retreating after the end of its operations to its locations near the eastern and northern outskirts of the North governorate, and the eastern and western parts of Gaza.
Ghaben says: “When the war started, I was in Kamal Adwan Hospital, and after my son’s treatment period ended, I took refuge in Al-Fakhoura School, and the occupation bombed us, so my husband’s second wife and her children were martyred.”
She added: “I decided to leave the town and went out running with my children after the army stormed it, heading towards the city of Rafah through the corridor that the occupation claimed was safe.”
It turned out that when she arrived at the military checkpoint while she was trying to flee, the army asked her to go there without her children. When she tried to convince them that she could not leave the children, the soldiers threatened to shoot her and asked the three children to continue walking alone.
After Ghaben headed towards the army, the soldiers asked her about her name and identification number, and asked her to go to an area behind piles of sand. When she arrived, she was surprised by a gathering of male and female soldiers.
The soldiers ordered Ghaben to take off her clothes, but she refused to do so in front of the soldiers. They threatened to kill her, so she was forced to do so and was subjected to searches.
She continues the conversation: “After I put my clothes back on, the soldiers placed handcuffs on my hands and feet and blindfolded me. Then they dragged me to one of the sites and transported us by military jeep to another site, where we slept for the night while we were blindfolded and with our hands and feet tied.”
Ghaben explains that she was subjected to strip searches several times by the army during her arrest, in addition to torture, severe beatings, and insults using obscene and obscene language.
She says: “They took us to a large building full of soldiers and soldiers, forced us to take off our clothes, hurt me, beat me, pulled my hair, and forced us to wear light gray prison uniforms in the cold weather.”
She added: “After that, they transferred us in a military jeep to the Antoat military detention center between Hebron and Jerusalem for 8 days. There they also forced me to take off my clothes, and I was beaten, insulted, and subjected to bad situations.”
The army deliberately leaves detainees, both male and female, with their hands and feet tied for long hours, and beats and tortures them, according to Ghaben, who continued her speech: “At first, we were placed in a place that I thought was a tent, and they began to interrogate us and ask us questions related to belonging to the factional movement.”
She added: “I was shown pictures and said, ‘This is your husband.’ I told them, ‘This is not my husband, but there are only similar names.’ After spending 8 days of interrogation and torture, they brought a bus and transferred me to Dimona Prison.”
The male and female detainees were transferred to the prison after the investigation was completed, and they remained for 54 days.
She explains that before the army released them, they transferred them to a new prison, where they spent an entire night before deporting them at dawn, blindfolded and with their hands and feet shackled, to a place they did not know.
Ghaben says: “The soldiers forced me to sign a paper stating that I had received our deposits, as I had gold jewelry worth 12,000 Jordanian dinars, 3,000 Jordanian dinars in cash, and personal belongings.”
She confirms that the soldiers stole all of her belongings and did not return anything to her except her personal identity card. They did not remove their handcuffs until they arrived at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where there were representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross who received the detainees and handed them 500 shekels.
She did not feel the joy of being released at the time because she did not know the fate and whereabouts of her three children.
Anatolia
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2024-04-12 13:15:21