Palestinian prisoners speak out about how they were raped in Israeli jails

Editor’s note: The article contains graphic and distressing details of sexual abuse.

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 told Middle East Eye. “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 with MEE is the first time he has spoken to international media on camera. MEE is publishing details of his story 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.

MEE’s 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 from MEE, the Israeli Prison Service said it “categorically rejected” the allegations of abuse described by the prisoners.

‘We want to kill you’

Al-Sai, 44, a father from Tulkarm, has worked for years as a journalist in the occupied West Bank, reporting for Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV.

On 23 February 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 7 October,” 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.

Raped by a dog

Halim Salem (not his real name), a Palestinian father from the West Bank who was detained months after the war on Gaza was launched, described to MEE how prison guards had used a dog to rape him.

It all started at 4am, as he was sleeping. Guards stormed the cell, throwing stun grenades and ordering prisoners to the floor. Eleven men, including Salem, were tied face down, he said.

“They treated us like carpets,” he told MEE. “They stepped on us.” 

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Salem was taken to the toilet – a known blind spot without cameras. 

He was beaten, ordered to strip naked and forced to kneel with his head in the toilet bowl.

His hands were tied behind him and lifted painfully. 

One guard kicked him in his genitals as another stood on his head. 

“I lost sense of where I was from the beating,” he recalled. 

Then, he said, a dog was brought in.

“The dog mounted me and raped me,” he said. “I felt the dog’s penis. I begged, screamed, tried to tense my body to stop it.”

When he screamed, the guards beat him for “disturbing the dog”, he said.

The assault lasted several minutes. Afterwards, Salem was thrown into the yard in freezing temperatures, handcuffed for six hours, wearing only underwear.

Ben Gvir visit

Salem said he had spent a year in Israeli custody. 

Though he wasn’t raped by the dog until a few days before his release, he said he was subjected to violent torture from the very first moment of his arrest.

“Every day was like a thousand deaths,” he said. 

From the outset, Salem said he was beaten, insulted and strip-searched. Guards inserted fingers into his anus under the pretext of searching for contraband.

In jail, he and other prisoners faced what he called a system of slow destruction: starvation, dehydration, medical neglect, extreme temperatures, filth and constant provocation.

‘I saw Ben Gvir with my own eyes. He was laughing and gesturing like a director’

– Halim Salem, former Palestinian prisoner 

Hygiene was severely restricted. Prisoners were forbidden from keeping containers to clean themselves after using the toilet. Tissues were rationed to a single square per day.

Food was systematically inadequate. Salem estimated that his daily rations, across all meals, amounted to no more than 700 grams.

“No salt. No sugar. No spices. No meat. No fruit,” he said.

Medical neglect compounded the damage. Vitamin deficiencies led to unfamiliar illnesses, including nails falling off, spreading ulcers and collapsed immune systems.

Overcrowding worsened conditions. A section designed for 120 prisoners held more than 220. If one prisoner contracted scabies, Salem said, entire rooms were infected.

Without treatment, scabies lasted months, spreading to the nerves and causing loss of movement for some.

On 9 July 2024, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, visited Ofer Prison, where Salem was being held.

Four rooms were raided, including his, by dozens of guards, at the request of Ben Gvir.

The minister, who was accompanied by two children, gave directions to the guards as they dragged prisoners into the yard and assaulted them with batons, including Salem.

“I told them – in Hebrew – that I had a heart condition,” he said. “They tied my hands behind me, lifted them, and two guards beat my chest while I was kneeling.”

One guard shouted, “Hit him until he dies.”

“I saw Ben Gvir with my own eyes,” Salem said. “He was laughing, gesturing like a director.”

Ben Gvir has made several similar visits to Israeli prisoner, often with a camera crew, where he oversaw abuse and taunted prisoners.

MEE has contacted Ben Gvir’s office for comment.

The Israeli Prison Service told MEE that the allegations made by prisoners in this article “were unknown to us and do not reflect the conduct of the Prison Service”.

It added that the IPS “operates in accordance with the law” and that the rights of detainees are upheld.

Commenting on al-Sai’s case after he had spoken at a public event in Ramallah earlier this week, Sara Qudah, the regional director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said: “The allegations of torture and sexual abuse made by Palestinian journalist Sami al-Sai are deeply alarming and tragically consistent with testimonies CPJ has received from other journalists detained in Israeli prisons.

“CPJ unequivocally condemns these practices, which point to a troubling and systemic pattern of abuse. These grave allegations demand urgent, independent investigations, full transparency, and accountability for all those responsible.”

Speaking out

For both men, recovery has been difficult. They leaned on faith to absorb the initial shock, but stayed silent for months.

After their release, they and their families struggled to readjust. When Salem finally returned home, his children did not recognise him.

“One recognised me by my smile,” he said. “Another said: ‘That’s not my father.’”

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Al-Sai did not even know his wife had given birth to a daughter while he was in custody. The adjustment was painful for both of them.

“Imagine this girl seeing a stranger come into her home,” he said. “Psychologically, it was very hard.”

Over time, they bonded. Now she runs to the door when he leaves. “We reached a good stage,” he said.

As he began to resettle, al-Sai decided to break his silence, first speaking to local media about what happened to him. Fearing re-arrest, his wife begged him to stop.

Fear of detention, social stigma and lingering trauma stop many former prisoners from speaking out, both men said.

“To this day, I relive it,” Salem said. “But we will not break.”

Since October 2023, Israeli forces have detained more than 20,000 Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza. Rights groups and former detainees describe systematic and daily abuse, including beatings, sexual violence, starvation and medical neglect.

Under these conditions, at least 110 prisoners are known to have died in custody since October 2023, though the true number is believed to be higher. About 9,300 Palestinians remain detained. 

Despite a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights groups say abuse inside prisons continues.

That is why al-Sai and Salem say they are speaking out.

“We are real people, with real names,” Salem said. “We are a living testimony for the world to see. They [Israelis] must be held accountable.”

Al-Sai agreed. “We have seen many lies from this occupation,” he said. “So we must show the truth. For those who try to ignore our pain, this is what it looks like.”