Gazan detainees tell BBC of torture by IDF and Israel Prison Service

Warning: This article contains distressing content

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.

In the men’s testimony:

• They each describe being stripped, blindfolded, cuffed and beaten
• Some also say they were given electric shocks, menaced by dogs, and denied access to medical care
• Some say they witnessed the deaths of other detainees
• One says he witnessed sexual abuse
• Another says he had his head dunked in chemicals and his back set on fire

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.

These, in turn, align with testimony given by others to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and the United Nations, which in July detailed reports from returning detainees that they had been stripped naked, deprived of food, sleep and water, subjected to electric shocks and burned with cigarettes, and had dogs set on them.

A further report by UN experts last month documented cases of rape and sexual assault, and said using this as a threat was “standard operating procedure” for the IDF. Israel responded to say it “categorically rejects the unfounded allegations”.

As Israel does not currently allow international journalists free access to Gaza, our interviews were conducted by phone call and text message, and also in person by our contracted freelancers in the territory.

All five men told us their abuse had begun at the moment of their arrest – when they said they had been stripped, blindfolded and beaten.

Mechanic Mohammad Abu Tawileh told us he had been tortured for days.

He was taken by soldiers to a building not far from the location of his arrest in March 2024, he said, and held in a room – the sole detainee there – for three days of interrogation by troops.

Warning: Graphic image below

Soldiers mixed chemicals used for cleaning into a pot, he told us, and dunked his head in them. The interrogators then punched him, he said, and he fell to the rubble-strewn floor, injuring his eye. He said they then covered his eye with a cloth, which he said “worsened his injury”.

They also set him alight, he told us.

“They used an air freshener with a lighter to set my back on fire. I thrashed around like an animal in an attempt to put the fire out. It spread from my neck down to my legs. Then, they repeatedly hit me with the bottoms of their rifles, and had sticks with them, which they used to hit and poke me on my sides,” he said.

They then “continued pouring acid on me. I spent around a day and a half being washed with [it],” he told us.

“They poured it on my head, and it dripped down my body while I was sitting on the chair.”

Eventually, he said, soldiers poured water on his body, and drove him into Israel where he received medical treatment in hospital, including skin grafts.

Most of his treatment, he said, took place at a field hospital at Sde Teiman barracks, an IDF base near Beersheba in southern Israel. He said he was cuffed naked to a bed and given a nappy instead of access to a toilet. Israeli doctors at this hospital have previously told the BBC shackling patients and forcing them to wear nappies is routine.

When the BBC interviewed Mr Abu Tawileh shortly after his release, his back was covered in red welts. The residual pain from his burns still woke him up, he said, and his vision had been affected.

The BBC was not able to speak to anyone who witnessed an attack on Mr Abu Tawileh, but a specialist eye doctor who treated him on his return to Gaza confirmed that he had suffered a chemical burn to the eye, damaging the skin around it. He also said Mr Abu Tawileh’s vision was weakening, due to either the chemicals or other trauma.

We showed images of his injuries and gave details of his testimony to several UK doctors, who said they appeared consistent with his account, though they noted there were limitations to what they could assess by looking at photos.

The BBC gave extensive details of this account to the IDF, giving it five days to investigate. It did not respond directly to Mr Abu Tawileh’s allegations but said it took any actions “which contradict its values very seriously”.

It said it would “examine” some of the cases, but did not respond to follow-up questions about whether this included Mr Abu Tawileh.

Others we interviewed also described abuse at the point of arrest.

“They cuffed us and hit us. No-one would give me a drop of water,” said Abdul Karim Mushtaha, a 33-year-old poultry slaughterhouse worker, who told us he was arrested in November 2023 at an Israeli checkpoint while following evacuation orders with his family. A report filed by a lawyer who later visited Mr Mushtaha noted he had been “subjected to severe beatings, humiliation, degradation and stripping during his arrest until he was transferred to prison”.

Two said they had then been left outside in the cold for hours, and two said Israeli soldiers stole their belongings and money.

The BBC gave details of the allegations of theft to the IDF, which described it as “contrary to the law and IDF values”. It said it would “thoroughly” examine the cases if more details were provided.

All our interviewees, including Mr Mushtaha, said they were transferred to the Israeli barracks of Sde Teiman, where Mr Abu Tawileh also said he received treatment in its field hospital.

One interviewee told us he was mistreated on the way there. He asked for his name not to be published for fear of reprisals, so we are calling him “Omar”.

He said Israeli soldiers stood and spat on him, and others with him, calling them “sons of pigs” and “sons of Sinwar” – referring to the Hamas leader and architect of the 7 October attacks, killed by Israel five months ago.

“They made us listen to a voice recording that said: ‘What you did to our children, we will do to your children’,” said the 33-year-old, who worked for an electrical cable company.

Sde Teiman has been the focus of previous serious complaints in the wake of the October 2023 attacks. Several soldiers stationed there were charged in February after they were filmed assaulting a detainee, resulting in his hospitalisation for a torn rectum and a punctured lung. In a separate case, a soldier at the base was sentenced after he admitted to the aggravated abuse of Palestinian detainees from Gaza.

Three of the men we spoke to alleged that dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Sde Teiman and other facilities.

“We would get beaten up when they took us from the barracks to the medical clinic or the interrogation room – they’d set [muzzled] dogs on us, tighten our cuffs,” said Mr Abu Tawileh who was held in general detention in the barracks, as well as being treated there.

The BBC asked the IDF to respond to allegations it frequently used dogs to intimidate and attack detainees. It said: “The use of dogs to harm detainees is prohibited.”

It also said there were “experienced terrorists considered to be very dangerous among the detainees held in IDF detention facilities” and that “in exceptional cases there is extended shackling during their detention”.

Several detainees said they had been forced to assume stress positions, including having their arms lifted above their heads for hours.

“We would be sitting on our knees from 5am until 10pm, when it was time to sleep,” said Mr Abu Tawileh.

Hamad al-Dahdouh, another interviewee, said beatings at the barracks “targeted our heads and sensitive areas like the eyes [and] ears”.

The 44-year-old, who worked as a farmer before the war, said he had suffered temporary back and ear damage as a result, and his rib cage had been fractured.

The IDF did not respond to this allegation.

Mr Dahdouh and some of the other released detainees said electric shocks were also used during interrogations or as punishment.

“The oppression units would bring dogs, sticks and stun guns, they would electrocute and beat us,” he said.

They would be subjected to beatings and intimidation every time they were moved, Mr Abu Tawileh added.

During these interrogations they had been accused of links with Hamas, the men added.

“Anyone who was imprisoned… they said: ‘You are a terrorist’,” said Mr Mushtaha. “They always tried to tell us that we had taken part in 7 October. They all had a grudge.

“I told them: ‘If I am Hamas or anyone else, would I be moving through the safe passage? Would I have listened to your calls to leave?'”

He said interrogations would go through the night.

“For three nights, I couldn’t sleep because they were torturing me. Our hands were tied and put above our heads for hours, and we weren’t wearing anything. Any time you would say ‘I’m cold’… they would fill a bucket with cold water, pour it on you and switch on the fan.”

Mr Dahdouh said their interrogators told them that whoever is from Gaza “is affiliated with terrorist groups”, and when detainees asked if they could challenge this in court they were told there was no time for that.

He said he was not given access to a lawyer. The IDF told the BBC: “Israeli law grants the right to judicial review in a civil district court, legal representation by an attorney, and the right of appeal to the Supreme Court.”

“Omar” said he was taken for three days of interrogation when he first arrived at Sde Teiman.

He said the detainees were dressed in thin overalls and held in a freezing room, with loud speakers playing Israeli music.

When the questioning was over, the men said they were led back to the barracks blindfolded.

“We didn’t know if night had come or morning had come. You don’t see the sun. You don’t see anything,” said Omar.

The IDF said it had “oversight mechanisms”, including closed-circuit cameras, “to ensure that detention facilities are managed in accordance with IDF orders and the law”.

Omar and Mr Mushtaha said they were then transferred to Ketziot prison, where they described a “welcoming ceremony” of beatings and other abuse.

Omar said he witnessed sexual assault at Ketziot.

“They took the clothes off some of the guys and would do shameful acts… They forced guys to perform sex acts on each other. I saw it with my own eyes. It wasn’t penetrative sex. He would tell one guy to suck another guy. It was obligatory.”

The BBC did not receive any other reports of this nature, but the Palestinian Prisoners Society, which tracks conditions of Palestinians in Israeli jails, described sexual abuse of detainees held in Ketziot as a “common occurrence”. This ranged from rape and sexual harassment to the beatings of genitals, it said.

The group said that while it had not received testimony of forced sexual acts between detainees, it had been told some had been made to look at each other naked and had been thrown on top of each other naked.

A report by B’Tselem has also gathered allegations of sexual violence, including from one prisoner who said guards attempted to rape him with a carrot.

The BBC put the allegation that prisoners were forced to perform sexual acts on each other to the Israel Prison Service (IPS). It replied that it was “not aware” of the sexual abuse claim or any of the other claims made about treatment and conditions at Ketziot and other prisons that the BBC had gathered.

It said: “IPS is a law enforcement organisation that operates according to the provisions of the law and under the supervision of the state comptroller and many other official critiques.

“All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards. We are not aware of the claims you described and, as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.

“Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”

Omar said they were also hit with batons at Ketziot prison.

“After we got tortured, I was in pain all night – from my back to my legs. The guys would carry me from my mattress to the toilet. My body, my back, my legs – my whole body was blue from beatings. For nearly two months I couldn’t move.”

Mr Mushtaha described having his head slammed into a door, and his genitals hit.

“They would strip us naked. They would Taser us. They would hit us in a sensitive place. They would tell us ‘We will castrate you’,” he said.

He said beatings were “meant to break your bones”, and that detainees would sometimes be grouped together and have hot water poured over them.

“The amount of torture was enormous,” he added.

Both he and Omar also described incidents of what they said amounted to medical negligence.

“My hands were all blisters and swollen,” said Mr Mushtaha.

“If people could have seen my legs they would have said they needed to be amputated from the inflammation… [Guards] would just tell me to wash my hands and legs with water and soap.

“But how was I meant to do this, when there was only water for one hour a day [between us], and as for soap, every week they would bring [only] a spoon of shampoo,” he added.

Mr Mushtaha said he was told by guards that: “As long as you have a pulse you are in good shape. As long as you are standing, you’re in good shape. When your pulse is gone, we will come to treat you.”

A report by a lawyer who visited both Mr Mushtaha and Omar in Ketziot last September said of Mr Mushtaha: “The prisoner, like the rest of the prisoners, suffers from pain due to boils on his hands, feet and buttocks, and there is no cleanliness and he is not provided with any kind of treatment.”

Mr Mushtaha also provided the BBC with a report compiled by a doctor in Gaza, which confirmed he was still infected with scabies on the day of his release.

Omar said detainees were beaten for requesting medical care.

The lawyer noted that Omar needed attention for “pimples spreading on the skin – in the groin and buttocks due to the harsh prison conditions” including lack of toiletries and polluted water. “The prisoner says that even when it is his turn to shower he tries to avoid it because the water… causes itching and inflammation.”

All the detainees added they had been given limited access to food and water while in detention at various facilities – several reported losing significant amounts of weight.

Omar said he lost 30kg (4st 10lb). The lawyer said Omar told him food was “almost non-existent” in the first few months, though conditions later “improved a little”.

Mr Mushtaha described food there being left outside their caged compounds for cats and birds to eat from first.

Another of our interviewees, Ahmed Abu Seif, said he was taken to a different prison – Megiddo, near the occupied West Bank, after being arrested on his 17th birthday.

He said Israeli authorities would regularly storm their cells there and spray them with tear gas.

“We would feel suffocated and unable to breathe well for four days after each tear gas attack,” according to Ahmed, who said he had been held in the prison’s youth wing.

“There was no consideration of us being children, they treated us like the militants of 7 October.”

During interrogations he had his nails pulled out, he told us. When the BBC filmed him the day after his release, he showed us how several of his toenails were still affected, as well as scars on his hands he said had been caused by handcuffs and dog scratches.

The IPS did not respond to this allegation.

Two of the men said they had witnessed the deaths of fellow detainees in Sde Teiman and Ketziot – one through beatings, including the use of dogs, and one through medical negligence.

The names and dates they gave of the incidents match media reports and accounts from human rights groups.

At least 63 Palestinian prisoners – 40 of them from Gaza – have died in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Prisoners Society told the BBC.

The IPS did not respond to questions about deaths of Palestinians in custody, while the IDF said it was “aware of cases of detainee deaths, including those who were detained with pre-existing illness or injury resulting from combat”.

“According to procedures, an investigation is opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID) into every detainee death,” it added.

The abuse continued right up to the moment they were freed in February, some of the men said.

“On the release day, they treated us brutally. They tightened the handcuffs and when they wanted to make us move they put our hands above our heads and pulled us,” Mr Mushtaha said.

“They said: ‘If you interact with Hamas or work with Hamas, you will be targeted.’ They said: ‘We will send a missile directly to you.'”

Ahmed, 17, also said conditions worsened after the ceasefire deal was signed in January. “The soldiers intensified the aggression against us knowing we were getting released soon.”

It was only once the detainees were transferred to the Red Cross bus for transportation back to Gaza that they felt “safe”, Omar said.

Footage showed some being returned in sweatshirts with the Star of David on them and the words: “We do not forget and we do not forgive” written in Arabic.

An official at Gaza’s European Hospital, which assessed the conditions of returned detainees, said skin conditions, including scabies, were common, and medics had observed many cases of “extreme emaciation and malnutrition” and “the physical effects of torture”.

Legal expert Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne told us: “Certainly the use of chemicals to burn the detainee and submerge their head would meet the threshold of torture, as would the use of electric shocks, removal of toenails, and severe beatings. These, or comparable acts, have all been recognised to constitute torture by international bodies,” as have the use of stress positions and loud music.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which conducts interviews with returning detainees, said it could not comment on individuals’ conditions due to privacy concerns.

It added that it was eager to be granted access to those still detained – something which has not been allowed since the 7 October attacks.

“The ICRC remains deeply concerned about the wellbeing of detainees and emphasises the urgent need for it to resume visits to all places of detention. We continue to request access in bilateral and confidential dialogue with the parties,” it told the BBC.

Fifty-nine hostages are still being held in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. The ICRC has never been granted access to them in their 18 months in captivity, and their loved ones have grave concerns over their wellbeing.

For many of the released Palestinian detainees, returning to Gaza was both a moment of celebration and of despair.

Mr Abu Tawileh said his family was shocked by his appearance when he was released, and added he was still affected by his experience.

“I am unable to do anything because of my injury, because my eye hurts, and it tears and feels itchy, and all of the burns on my body feels itchy as well. This is bothering me a lot,” he said.

Teenager Ahmed said he now wants to leave Gaza.

“I want to emigrate because of the things we saw in detention, and because of the mental torture of fearing the bombs falling on our heads. We wished for death but couldn’t find it.”