WE WILL MAKE THEM TASTE THE PUNISHMENT OF THEIR CRIME!

These criminals must be punished severely! They've been doing evil for so long! It's our hands that will punish them!

Journalist Sami Al-Sa’i, from the Artah suburbs near #Tulkarem, reveals he was brutally tortured in the occupation’s prisons — including degrading assaults with hard objects amounting to rape and sexual torture.

Below is a translation of Sami's testimony (Source: RNN Prisoners)

"They stripped me of my lower clothing and forced me into a prostration position on the ground. Then they began a form of indirect rape — which meant bleeding and extreme psychological distress. This continued for about twenty-two days until the bleeding stopped. They then took me to another place, my hands tied behind my back. This started from the very first moment — all the beatings happened while I was handcuffed from behind, blindfolded. You can’t see anything, you don’t know where the next blow will come from.

Later, they took me to another place. I discovered that the cell was very small. They stripped me of my lower clothing again, forced me into the prostration position on the ground, and began another act of indirect rape — with sticks and other sharp or hard objects. This went on for about half an hour. I felt immense pain and psychological suffering. You don’t know what to do. You scream. You beg. You’re in agony. But no one responds.

All of this happened amid their laughter, chuckling, and insults — all spoken fluently in Arabic. They spoke during the entire thirty minutes of this journey of torment, beatings, rape, and assault. And because I’m a journalist — from the moment I entered, they knew I was a journalist. They would say "You’re a journalist.” Because I’m a journalist, the beatings intensified. The torture increased.

After that, they transferred me to the Ma’bar section. I was fasting — it was the holy month of Ramadan, in March 2024. I entered the Ma’bar, and along the way I was dragged at times, carried at times, beaten at times. When I entered one of the rooms, the other prisoners welcomed me — they knew that anyone who arrived new would have been beaten. I rested a little. Then I went to the bathroom to shower.

That’s when I discovered I was bleeding from the rectal area. There was no medical care — severe and widespread neglect. I couldn’t even ask for a doctor or anything. You had to take care of yourself. So I asked the guys for tissues — whatever was available. I made them into plugs and inserted them into my rectum to absorb the blood and stop it from flowing out.

This went on for about twenty-two days — the bleeding and psychological trauma. After that, I began to recover, to regain my strength through my relationship with the other prisoners — talking to them, laughing with them.

Later, I returned to the place where I had been raped. When I found the clothes I had lost, in the spot where I had been forced into prostration, they smelled of urine, blood, pus, and vomit. This is a filthy place. A place where torture is carried out. A place where abuse is inflicted on our prisoner brothers. A very harsh place, where torture is carried out, because it’s far away. But this place is away from the surveillance cameras installed inside the prison. No one sees them, they feel free to carry out their “hobbies” of repression, abuse, and beatings as they please. This is a vile place. A narrow cell where the prisoner is placed, tortured, and raped, away from the surveillance cameras. And that’s where they acted, violating me from behind with hard objects like sticks. They tried to insert the inspection stick, I recognized it because it buzzes and makes a sound. They tried to insert it, but it was too large. It wouldn’t go in. This caused more injury. And they kept beating and beating and beating. Insults, abuse, targeting us, our wives, our sisters, and our mothers,  all in Arabic."

Note: In many cases, Palestinian prisoners share this kind of sensitive information anonymously due to discomfort. However, journalist Sami Al-Sa’i chose to speak publicly — not only to shed light on his own experience, but also to emphasize that nearly every Palestinian prisoner could be subjected to similarly severe methods of torture and inhumane conditions.

Source: RNN Prisoners, https://t.me/RNN_Prisoners