During interrogations and torture sessions, 35-year-old Walid al-Khalili was asked by Israeli jailers about the hostages held in Gaza and about Hamas’s political leader in the Strip, Yahia Sinwar. A medic and ambulance driver, he repeatedly insisted that he knew nothing about them. Then, according to his complaint, the electric shocks, beatings, head-first immersion in water, and extreme cold sessions continued. Meanwhile, he and other prisoners were kept naked, covered only by a diaper.
For almost a month, at the end of 2023, this Gazan remained in the Sde Teiman military detention centre, a facility in the south of the country, in the Negev desert, where some prisoners have died and which has ended up being dubbed by some media and humanitarian organisations as Israel’s Guantanamo. The Israeli Supreme Court, humanitarian organisations and the UN criticise its existence. “It is not a prison, it is a slaughterhouse,” Al Khalili repeats several times during his testimony to Morning Express through messages in which he claims to have seen two colleagues die.
“I am not a member of Hamas and I do not cooperate with Hamas,” he repeats, while insisting that Israel suspects all the medics of being collaborators with the radical Palestinian group in the captivity of the hostages. “A fantasy,” he says. “Only when they confirmed that I am not a member of Hamas did they put an end to the nightmare,” he says. He says that he was interrogated five times and, in addition to the Israeli internal secret services (Shin Bet), he details that there were some soldiers with the US flag on their chests. “They spoke English and their uniforms were different from those that displayed a small Israeli flag,” he confirms.
Walid al Khalili, who lost 22 kilos during his captivity, agrees to appear in this report with his name and surname and accepts that his photos be published despite the fear of reprisals because he hopes to be treated for his injuries, return to work and, above all, be able to reunite with his family – he has remained in Rafah since his release, while his relatives are in the north of the Strip. He chooses to spare some gruesome details, especially regarding some of the deaths he witnessed, but the Dantesque picture he paints is consistent with that of other inmates who have passed through this centre surrounded by controversy.
The Israeli army, without offering any details, confirmed to Morning Express that it is investigating the deaths of detainees without specifying whether they are from Sde Teiman. Up to 36 people from that prison have died, according to data published by the newspaper. Haaretz“I witnessed the murder of three prisoners,” says Al Khalili, although in his testimony he only gives direct details about two.
Tortures
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They had been hung by their legs and given electric shocks, explains the medic, who has suffered the same torture. “They were next to me, I could hear them screaming and after that they were martyred[manera de referirse a que entregaron su vida a la causa palestina]. We took them down and they stayed with us for a whole day in the cell until the soldiers came and took them away.”
“I knew they were dead. I spoke to the soldiers and told them they were dead because I am a medical worker and I know the signs of death. And the heart had stopped,” he stresses when asked for more details. The third, he says, was shot dead outside the facility after being tortured. Although he heard the shots, he did not see them.
“I still live in nightmares. I will never forget it in my entire life. They used to hang me with chains for days. They would put an iron collar around my head, connected to one hand and one leg, which would give me electric shocks. Sometimes they would put my head in a container with water to stop me from breathing, or they would burn me with a burning tube connected to the current,” she explains.
These were some of the methods used against him and other prisoners from Gaza, according to his complaint, in a prison opened by Israel in a military base some thirty kilometres from the Gaza border at the beginning of the war, through which, according to the army’s own data, some 4,700 detainees have passed. Some media report that these days there are only a few dozen left, although groups continue to arrive from the Strip. Military spokesmen do not confirm its closure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked that it continue to operate.
Al Khalili continues the litany of abuses during his imprisonment between November and December. “They put me in a refrigerator for more than four hours. Then they moved me to an empty space and poured ice water on me while they placed me next to a fan until late at night. It was very cold,” he continues his complaint.
“The hooded soldiers beat our legs and hands with sticks while insulting us. I was injured, with broken bones and bleeding, but I received no medical attention other than some painkillers and a bandage on my hand. They also forced us to take hallucinogenic pills. Screams could be heard throughout the prison because of the brutality of the torture,” he explains. On another occasion, “the soldiers took us to an open area, pointed their guns at us and told us they were going to kill us all. They were always telling us they were going to kill us.”
The medic says he spent most of his time with his eyes covered – “we didn’t know if it was day or night” – and his hands cuffed in a facility he describes thus: “The outside yard is made up of iron cages, barbed wire and electric cables, as well as the torture rooms.” They were forbidden to communicate with each other. As part of the Israeli investigations, Al Khalili recalls surreal scenes during his interrogations: “They drew an ambulance on the wall and asked me if I could bring Sinwar to them in it. I told them I couldn’t. Then they gave me an electric shock and beat me with sticks.”
Israel’s main objectives include freeing the more than 100 hostages – although 40 are presumed dead – who remain in Gaza and killing or capturing the leaders of the fundamentalists in the Strip. They accuse Sinwar, along with others, of being the mastermind behind the massacre of some 1,200 people on October 7 in Israeli territory, which triggered a war in which the military has already killed more than 38,000 people in retaliation in the past nine months.
Wounded during the war
Walid al Khalili had been slightly wounded in the face in the first weeks of the conflict, but the Palestinian Medical Relief Society member decided to continue working. After another attack, while transporting several wounded people in the Tal Al Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, he had to take refuge in a building where he was intercepted by the Israeli occupation forces. “I was identified by my medical uniform,” he says.
He estimates that this arrest took place on November 10. He spent a total of about 25 days in Sde Teiman before being transferred to another Israeli prison, also in the Negev desert, and finally being returned to Gaza without charge or accusation on December 19, along with another group of prisoners.
“My family thought I had been killed,” he explains. The war and his injuries have kept Al Khalili from returning to work and separated from his wife and three children, who remain in northern Gaza. He lives in a tent in Rafah, at the southern end of the enclave, one of the most turbulent areas since May after the Israeli army arrived by land. “I am a medical worker. I do not distinguish between Israelis or Palestinians; between Muslims, Jews or Christians,” he says.
Visit of lawyers
In a rare case of permission from the authorities, lawyers Khaled Mahajneh and Marah Amarah were able to visit their client, Mohamed Sabre, a journalist for the Qatari channel Al Araby, through a glass window in Sde Teiman in June. He was arrested almost four months ago by Israeli soldiers in Al Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza. “Soldiers wearing black masks enter with the prisoner, who arrives with his hands and feet tied, his back bent forward and his eyes covered,” explains lawyer Amarah over the phone.
“Where am I?” the prisoner asked his lawyers. Sabre described “torture, abuse and various forms of assault, including sexual abuse and rape,” leading to the deaths of some inmates, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club detailing Mahajneh and Amarah’s visit. Sabre’s fellow inmates at Al Araby confirm that he has been transferred in recent days to Israel’s Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.
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