Tales from Behind the Walls: Freed prisoners’ voices expose Israeli occupation’s crimes

“Tales from Behind the Walls”.. Voices of Freed Prisoners Expose the Occupation’s Crimes

As dozens of Palestinian prisoners draw their first breaths of freedom in the streets after years of harsh detention, a stream of accounts has emerged revealing bloody chapters of abuse inside Israeli prisons. These testimonies not only recount details of torture and maltreatment but expose an integrated system of daily humiliation and flagrant violations of international law and humanitarian conventions. The prisoners’ issue has never been mere numbers in reports; it is a living embodiment of a steadfast people, who see in their patience a picture of dignity and in their resilience a banner of struggle. Prisoners are guardians of national meaning from behind bars; they turned cells into schools of patience and their bodies into fields of struggle that restraints cannot defeat. Between the jailer’s oppression and the prisoner’s dignity, this issue remains an open testament to the occupation, to the absence of justice, and to the hope that a global conscience will wake from its slumber.

“The Living Grave”..

Jamal Daghah, one of the freed prisoners from the village of Mazar al-Nubani north of Ramallah, described his harsh experience in the occupation’s prisons as a “living grave,” saying: “What we went through is unbelievable. We were beaten daily and deprived of food; I lost about thirty kilograms, and my physical and mental condition tells the whole story.”

Daghah added: “They wanted to extinguish in us the will to live, but we clung to patience and hope, and we came out with souls stronger than their walls.”

His testimony matches dozens of accounts documented by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, which reveal a policy of “starvation and abuse” practiced by the Israeli Prison Service against detainees since the start of the assault on Gaza.

At the end of his remarks, Daghah said movingly: “We left prison with exhausted bodies, but our spirits are free. The occupation may detain our bodies, but it cannot detain our will.”

The freed prisoner’s words sum up the pain of hundreds who recently left the cells, carrying scars that do not heal and hearts filled with unbroken resolve.

Harrowing testimonies… Beatings, electric shocks and humiliation a daily reality behind bars

Freed prisoner Thaer Abu Sara (17) from Nablus revealed shocking details in an interview about what he endured during his detention, saying: “I was subjected to severe beatings and electric shocks; they left us for long hours without food or medicine, and they mocked us when we asked for water or painkillers.”

He added: “I used to hear the screams of prisoners in the neighboring cells, and whenever someone screamed, I knew my turn would inevitably come.”

In another painful testimony, university student Shatha Jarrar (24) from Jenin spoke of her harsh experience inside Hasharon prison, pointing to continuous violations against female detainees: “I was placed in a cell monitored by cameras even inside the bathroom; the aim was to humiliate us psychologically and break our dignity. I refused food for days to preserve my privacy and dignity.”

She added: “We heard the screams of female prisoners at night, and banging on the iron doors was our only way to communicate and comfort one another.”

Freed prisoner Faisal (who asked that his family name not be published for security reasons) said what he experienced in prison defies description: “The beatings were random, and the insults never stopped. What we suffered could be spread over half the nation and it would be enough pain for them, but we responded with patience and faith that we would be released one day.”

He pointed out that prison administration deliberately isolated him and prevented visits and contact with the outside world “so that there would be no witnesses to the crimes.”

These testimonies join hundreds of accounts documented by human rights organizations, confirming that detainees, including children and women, have been subjected to grave violations amid a lack of international accountability.

Lists of the freed.. and testimonies for investigation

In recent days the Prisoners’ Media Office published official lists naming hundreds of freed detainees in the latest exchange deal, which included prisoners of various ages and areas, among them: Nasri Aayed Hussein Asi, Mohammad Jamal Mohammad Aql, Ahmed Adel Jaber Saadeh, and others serving long sentences.

The lists confirmed that the release operation was not limited to newly detained prisoners but also included prisoners who spent many years in jail, some whose detention exceeded ten years, reflecting the comprehensiveness and breadth of the deal.

Alongside these developments, rights demands have grown as painful testimonies from freed prisoners about torture, starvation and humiliation have continued.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club issued successive statements calling for an urgent international investigation into what they described as “systematic torture crimes” inside the occupation’s prisons.

The commission’s spokesman said: “These testimonies are not stories or isolated incidents but conclusive evidence of a systematic policy aimed at breaking the will of Palestinian detainees.”

He indicated that the commission continues to collect documents and testimonies in preparation to submit them to the International Criminal Court as part of a war crimes file.

International rights calls

International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called for immediate access for United Nations missions and the International Committee of the Red Cross to the detention facilities, especially in light of reports of the deaths of a number of prisoners under torture and the deteriorating health conditions of dozens of others.

The testimonies of freed prisoners reveal that the occupation’s prisons are an extension of an open war on the Palestinian person, where the most brutal forms of torture and abuse are practiced in an attempt to break spirits and silence voices. Yet they emerged to assert they are not numbers in statistics but witnesses to the truth and messengers of dignity that will not bow.

The prisoners’ issue is not a detail in the liberation struggle but the heart of the conflict and the scale of a nation’s dignity. Those who resisted behind bars do not only need the doors to be opened; their sacrifices must be told and the occupying state held accountable for its crimes. Their persistence, despite shackles and wounds, awakens in generations a faith that does not die — that freedom is seized, not given. Honoring them begins here: by turning their pain into a lasting global cause until the cells are defeated and freedom is written.