Freed Palestinian Teen Recounts Over a Year of Abuse in Israeli Custody
Like many Palestinian captives, Mohammed Abu Sahlool endured frequent beatings, electrocution, starvation, prolonged shackling, and psychological torture.
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip—When 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Sahlool stepped off the Red Cross bus bringing hundreds of Palestinian captives released from Israeli custody to Khan Younis, he was barely recognizable to his family. Emaciated and terrified, he had endured over a year of abuse at the hands of his Israeli captors, including frequent beatings, electrocution, starvation, prolonged shackling, and psychological torture.
“I tried numerous times during my detention to persuade the guards to let me go because I am a child,” Mohammed told Drop Site News. “But they were mocking and breaking my hope by telling me that I’d never get out of prison. For the past 13 months of captivity, I was dreaming to see the sun, but I never did. All we had was a room like a cave with a lightbulb.”
Mohammed was one of 24 children released on February 27 as part of the first phase of the “ceasefire” agreement. His harrowing account of his time in detention is characteristic of Israel’s systematic abuse of Palestinian detainees, many held without charge or trial and subjected to horrific and inhumane treatment. On Tuesday, a UN-backed commission held hearings with testimony of former prisoners in Gaza who described many of the same abuses that Mohammed was forced to endure.
Mohammed was released along with hundreds of other Palestinian captives on February 27. The scenes outside the European Hospital in Khan Younis were both heart wrenching and joyful. As the buses arrived at dawn, huge crowds thronged around them. Mothers wept with joy. Fathers rushed towards their children. It was a moment of sheer euphoria, of freedom, of reunion. The cheers and ululations that filled the air briefly drowned out the misery and sorrow of the preceding 15 months of unrelenting Israeli bombardment and occupation.
While the captives emerged into the open air triumphant, their bodies had been ravaged. Their skin was bruised, discolored, and pockmarked with scabies; their wrists bore deep shackle marks; and many were gaunt and frail.
Mohammed’s father had stayed home to prepare the family’s badly damaged home as best he could for his son’s arrival—but he also remained because, in the previous release of Palestinian captives, Israel delayed their freedom for several days, and his father said he couldn’t bear the disappointment if it happened again. But Mohammed’s mother and aunts were all there, and they rushed to embrace him and shower him with kisses.
Mohammed was taken by Israeli forces in January 2024, when he was 16 years old. He and his family had been living at their home in western Khan Younis when occupation troops invaded the city in December 2023. On January 21, 2024, they fled their home and took refuge in a nearby UN school. Two days later, the Israelis raided the school and then forced people outside in groups of five for inspection.
“When the Israeli soldiers called my group, they arrested me in front of my family,” Mohammed said. “My hands and feet were shackled, I was blindfolded, and stripped of my clothes, left with only my underwear and a thin medical gown.”
Mohammed said he was then interrogated for over 17 days. First at a checkpoint in Khan Younis for several hours, then two days at a location near the separation fence, and 15 days in a position just outside of Gaza.
“They asked me about Hamas and the tunnels even though I didn’t know anything,” Mohammed said. “But they deemed me a liar. Every time I said I didn’t know, I was heavily beaten, harassed, and electrocuted. The officer, who spoke Arabic very fluently, had an electroshock gun, which he used to shock us for fun during the interrogations. They also frequently attacked us by unleashing large dogs on us. The dogs seemed trained to scratch our skin and attack our sensitive organs. For them, we were prey.”
He continued: “Whenever the interrogator wanted to put out his cigarette he did it in my hand. Every time I expressed my anguish, he became more aggressive and beat me harder. There were times when I had to tell lies to get away from the terror. As a result of the beatings during the interrogations, many people died.”
Mohammed said he was at times held in an outdoor military barracks surrounded by razor wire. Consistent with many other captives’ accounts, Mohammed said he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and made to kneel almost the entire time during this period. “I once shifted my knees slightly to rest,” he recalled. “The soldier reached and pulled my hands through the razor wire and twisted them until they hurt a lot.” He also described being beaten in the genitals. When the captives would ask if they could go to the bathroom, they were denied, Mohammed said, forcing them to urinate and defecate in the open.
At night they slept shackled and blindfolded with only a thin fabric that provided no respite from the bitter cold. There was little food or water provided—just four small pieces of bread, a teaspoon of cheese and one can of tuna per day. “I barely made it through this,” Mohammed recalled.
After 17 days, Mohammed was transferred to Megiddo, a prison in northern Israel notorious for abuse and mistreatment of detainees. His blindfold and shackles were removed and he was thrown into a 7 x 3 meter (23 x 10 foot) cell where he was held for the next 12 months with up to 15 other detainees crammed inside at the same time. He said prison authorities did not provide him with a change of clothes though some of the other detainees managed to give him something to wear. While the interrogation at Megiddo was not as brutal and frequent as the initial detention period, he was still routinely questioned about Hamas. “The officer would come and beat us as if we were toys for him to play with,” he said, adding that guards would also sometimes tear gas them in their cells as well as unleash dogs on them.
“Whenever I told the officer I missed my mother, he started swearing, calling her a bitch and a whore. He would repeatedly say things like, ‘I will fuck your mom. I will get her pregnant.’ He was doing that whenever he passed by and his eyes caught mine. He insulted not only my mom but my sisters too. I never did anything wrong, I just missed my mother,” he said.
Due to the unhygienic conditions in the prison, Mohammed contracted various skin diseases, including scabies. He lost over 10 kilos (22 lbs) from his already slight frame and his mental health deteriorated.
“Requesting medical attention was extremely dehumanizing. In order to get any care, I had to keep demanding it and groaning in pain for over a month. It was only after weeks of begging the guards that I would finally get some medication,” Mohammed said. “When the nurse would see us, he wouldn’t care at all, he would just prescribe one pill of paracetamol, regardless of your illness.”
“I wished for death several times because I had lost any hope that I’d be freed. I was weeping day in and day out over my family since we were cut off from the entire world,” he said. “I wished to know something about them because I was frightened most of the time that they would be bombed or starved. I longed to see them in my dreams.”
In January, news of the “ceasefire” agreement involving an exchange of captives began to circulate within the prison.
“A sense of euphoria flooded through us,” Mohammed said. “However, it felt so stark and depressing to have had to wait as others were being released. I can’t forget the day when I was named on the list. It was an indescribable moment. I was praying the dawn prayers, and then the door’s bell rang. The officer came and began calling names. I was the first on the list. At first, I thought I was being called to be beaten or interrogated.” But he was soon informed that he was to be freed as part of the exchange.
On February 20, Mohammed said he was transferred to Al-Naqab prison, a detention facility in southern Israel, where his treatment improved. Along with 600 other prisoners, he was slated to be released on February 22, but Israel delayed the release by several days. Finally, on February 27th, he was finally freed.
“As we were ordered to prepare ourselves to leave, a sense of ecstasy touched our hearts. They wrapped bracelets around our wrists that said ‘The eternal people do not forget. I pursued my enemies and overtook them.’ We then departed and drove to the Karam Abu-Salem Crossing. I couldn’t believe [I had been freed] and was eager to hug my family. I kept my hands close as if they were cuffed and I looked at the sky,” he said.
When he finally stepped off the bus at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, his 37-year-old mother, Nedaa, pushed through the jubilant crowd to reach him.
“When he first arrived, I burst into tears. Tears of elation after all the pain I had to suffer over time. I cuddled him so warmly and closely and began crying in his arms. It was a new start to life for me,” Nedaa told Drop Site. “Despite losing several relatives, this moment gave us eternal happiness. I never imagined we would meet again. We were subjected to relentless bombardments. Meanwhile, he could have died from the torture. To embrace him again is the dream moment I will never forget. I still find it very difficult to believe he is with us.”
They took him to the damaged family home where his 40-year-old father was waiting. “I can’t believe that he’s in my arms right now,” he said. “A part of my soul was taken, and we are now reunited. We’ll stay here and rebuild everything. Hopefully, peace will prevail forever and no more wars will break out. What we experienced is enough.”
“I wish for no one in the world to be exposed to what I endured,” Mohammed said. “I honestly still wake up terrified every day, looking at the sky and my hands to see whether or not there are bars or shackles.”
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