During the session, al-Sa’i detailed systematic beatings, humiliation, starvation and sexual assault, including rape with a baton and other objects, accompanied by threats that the same treatment would be inflicted on Palestinian journalists as a group.
Al-Sa’i said recounting the experience publicly had not been easy. After his release in June last year, he remained silent for around six weeks before deciding that remaining quiet about what prisoners were facing amounted to “a crime in itself”. He has since chosen to give testimony on several occasions.
He said his most recent detention, which took place amid Israel’s war on Gaza and a broader campaign against Palestinian prisoners, was unlike any of his previous arrests.
For the first 19 days, al-Sa’i was held at the Hawara detention centre south of Nablus, a facility prisoners describe as temporary and lacking basic living conditions.
Detainees often hope to be transferred quickly to a prison where conditions are “less bad”, he said. This time, however, his lawyer advised him to remain at Hawara rather than be moved, advice he did not initially understand.
After his transfer by Israeli border police to Megiddo prison, al-Sa’i said he realised why. “There, I lived through the hardest experience of my life,” he said.
He told guards about his medical condition, explaining that he had donated one of his kidneys to his son in 2022, but said this made no difference. Upon arrival, he was met by a masked female guard who examined his prescription glasses before blindfolding him and taking him to the prison clinic.
On the way, al-Sa’i said he heard other prisoners screaming under torture and heard soldiers forcing them to chant “Long live the Israeli flag”. At the clinic, one guard threatened him with rape using gestures and crude language, calling him “a Hamas man”, while another told him: “Today you will die.”
According to al-Sa’i, the prison doctor effectively gave the signal for abuse to begin. After a brief examination while he was restrained, the doctor reportedly said: “Everything is fine, take him.”
Most of al-Sa’i’s clothes were removed in the cold, leaving him with only a light shirt, thin trousers and plastic shoes.
He was ordered to place the rest of his clothes and shoes in a container filled with waste. After a forced strip search, he was beaten repeatedly as he was moved to another room, with blows to his head, face and mouth, accompanied by insults and threats aimed at journalists.
Inside the room, he was forced to remove his trousers and underwear and made to sit in a prostrated position. Blindfolded, he smelled a foul stench and felt dampness beneath him, later realising the floor was covered in vomit and blood from previous torture.
He was initially struck on the buttocks and believed the guards were attempting to humiliate or photograph him. He then felt an attempt to insert a hard object into his rectum. He resisted, but the pain became unbearable as the assault continued.
The guards inserted a baton and deliberately moved it side to side and up and down, while continuing to beat him and apply severe pressure to his genitals. Al-Sa’i said he screamed in pain and writhed on the floor as one guard stood with his full weight on his head and neck and another pressed a foot into his back.
At that point, he said he began to suffocate and felt close to death, thinking of his daughter, who had been born while he was in detention. He said he genuinely believed he would not survive.
He said one guard then grabbed his penis and pulled it violently, while another told his colleague in Hebrew to “bring a carrot”, which was also inserted. Throughout, guards laughed, mocked him and threatened to subject all Palestinian journalists to the same abuse.
Al-Sa’i said the rape lasted between 20 and 25 minutes, while the beating, humiliation and torture continued for 40 to 45 minutes.
Afterwards, he was unable to stand or walk, but was forced to do so under further blows. When he collapsed, guards dragged him along the floor, continuing to assault him, stopping only briefly when they passed surveillance cameras.
He said he only grasped the extent of his injuries when he was later allowed to shower and discovered blood at the site of the assault. He attempted to stop the bleeding using scraps of tissue provided by other prisoners, eventually fashioning a makeshift plug when the bleeding did not stop.
In the prison wing, he said he suffered intense itching at night due to bedbugs and was advised by other prisoners to sleep on the floor rather than on bunks. He also had to remain in clothes soiled with blood and other filth from the torture room.
Like other detainees, al-Sa’i said he was subjected to starvation, receiving only a small cup of watery soup with a few beans and a handful of undercooked rice.
He described repeated raids on prison celss, particularly after his transfer to Ramon prison, where guards used stun grenades inside cells, deployed police dogs and dragged prisoners into the yard under heavy rain.
Al-Sa’i also criticised Palestinian official bodies, saying that after he chose to speak publicly and reveal his identity, no Palestinian official contacted him to check on his well-being or offer psychological or medical support.
He said his salary was cut off during his detention, leaving his wife and six children without their only source of income.
He said he had hoped his testimony would be taken up and internationalised as part of a broader case documenting abuses against Palestinian prisoners, particularly because so few had dared to speak publicly.
“I did not speak only to tell my personal story,” he said, “but to defend the cause of all abductees.”
The New Arab is a a progressive, non-partisan news and current affairs outlet that brings the biggest stories from the Middle East and North Africa and beyond.
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