Surviving Torture: A Palestinian Woman’s Harrowing Journey Through Israeli Detention
Watan-Social media buzzed last December with a shocking video of an Israeli military truck carrying dozens of Palestinians detained by the Zionist occupation army. They were semi-naked, blindfolded, and their hands tied behind their backs.
Among the detainees in the truck was a woman with a white bandage over her eyes, a disturbing sight. This woman was identified as Hadeel Alduhdouh from Gaza, separated from her infant child and subjected to brutal treatment during her 54 days of Israeli detention, interrogation, and torture, which spared neither men, nor children, nor women.
Speaking to the “Middle East Eye” website, Hadeel described the horrific torture she endured, including being injected with unknown substances and interrogated alongside other Palestinian men, semi-naked, in a truck on December 8, 2023.
Journalist Maha Al-Husseini’s report detailed the shocking video documenting the Israeli army’s arrest of dozens of Palestinian men, blindfolded, and stripped of their clothes, cramped into an exposed Israeli truck in the besieged Gaza Strip. They appeared cold, hungry, and shocked amidst the cold and rainy December weather.
Amidst this scene, Hadeel Alduhdouh, a mother of two, stood out. She was the only woman abducted by Israeli soldiers when they raided the Zaitoun neighborhood in Gaza City late last year.
التعرض للضرب والدفن حياً والتفتيش عارياً على يد الارهابيين الإسرائيليين .
هديل الدحدوح، من غزة، تصف كيف تم إبعادها عن أبنائها الصغار وسوء معاملتهم خلال 54 يومًا من الاعتقال والاستجواب والتعذيب الإسرائيلي . pic.twitter.com/tOgWv9M38o
— Tamer | تامر (@tamerqdh) March 28, 2024
Injected with unknown substances
Speaking to the “Middle East Eye” website in Rafah after her prolonged detention, Hadeel Alduhdouh stated that she, her husband, in-laws, and neighbors were injected with unknown substances, subjected to lengthy and violent interrogations, and even terrorized with mock executions while in Israeli detention.
Hadeel Alduhdouh, on the verge of tears, still wore the same “prayer robe” she had on when first arrested, her sorrow evident as she recounted the humiliation she endured.
Her testimony, derived from her captivity in parts of occupied Gaza and Israel, corroborates that of other former detainees abducted by Israeli forces following the October 7 attacks.
Hadeel Alduhdouh was arrested after a summons
She recounted that her ordeal began when Israeli forces surrounded her area with tanks and other armored vehicles, forcing her family – her husband, children, in-laws, and two members of the Moroccan family – to seek shelter in their small home.
“We were taking refuge in the basement when Israeli soldiers bombed one of the walls and entered. They took all of us outside and separated men from women,” she said.
A soldier called her and said, “Come here; we will conduct a test for you.” When she asked about the type of test, he told her it would be a small test on her hands, and she would return to her children.
Hadeel Alduhdouh said that before leaving her basement, she handed her four-year-old son, Mohammed, and her nine-month-old son, Zain, to her mother-in-law because she feared the worst.
“They then took us to another evacuated house in Zaitoun neighborhood. As soon as we entered the house, they immediately started beating and torturing us.”
Hallucinogenic drugs
“They kept us there for some time before a soldier came and gave the men some sort of sedative injection in their lower backs. After a short while, they started hallucinating and weren’t fully conscious. The soldiers didn’t tell us what they gave them. But I suppose it was a painkiller because I’ve previously had a cesarean section and was given a sedative injection that also caused hallucinations.”
Exhausting position
Then one of the soldiers forced Hadeel Alduhdouh into a strenuous position, with her head on the ground and her arms tied behind her knees. She said her back was exposed, and she was injected with a substance near her spinal cord.
“For over an hour, I was forced to sit in this position and was not allowed to move. If I moved, they would beat me severely, accusing me of being a Hamas agent,” she said.
“I cried and begged, saying, ‘I swear to God I’m not, I’m just an ordinary citizen like anyone else.’ And I added, ‘I don’t know what they injected me with, they also took something from my body, like a blood sample.'”
The Duhaodh went on to say that Israeli soldiers then interrogated her and other men about the October 7 attack, asking them what they were doing when Hamas fighters breached the border fence and attacked southern Israel.
Plastic restraints
“One Israeli soldier was asking me questions and hitting me hard on my back and legs. The plastic restraint on my hand was very tight and painful, so I told him, ‘Please loosen it a bit.’ Instead, he tightened it even more.”
The survivor continued by stating that the occupation forces held her and those with her in a house for one night. In the morning, they were taken to another location claimed to be the court, where there were over a hundred detainees. They were placed among the men, and the soldiers started beating them.
“I’ll bury you alive” On the third day, Hadeel Alduhdouh said the Israeli forces dug what seemed to be a pit and threw her and dozens of other men into it. “I started crying and screaming, asking, ‘What are you doing?’ Then one of the officers said to me, ‘I’ll bury you alive.’ I told him, ‘Shoot us directly, it’s better than torturing us this way.'”
She says the criminal officer began to beat and insult her, then removed her veil. “I was crying and felt like I was collapsing. The feeling was indescribable.”
Hadeel went on to describe the horror she witnessed and witnessed that day when she was blindfolded, but she could see a little through the bandage on her eyes. She said that the Israeli soldiers took her husband, placed him on the ground near a tank, and pretended they were going to run him over. Then she heard two gunshots. Then a soldier told me, ‘Your husband has been killed,’ and Hadeel Alduhdouh said she thought her husband had died after that.
🔴:قبل 54 يوم وتحديداً شهر 12 عام 2023 ظهرت صوره لامراة بين مجموعة رجال فلسطينيين احتجزهم الاحىًلال…
الامراة هذي اسمها هديل يوسف الدحدوح، وهنا في مقطع اليوم تم نشره توصف كيف تم إبعادها عن أبنائها الصغار وسوء معاملتهم خلال 54 يوم من الاعتقال والاستجواب والتعذيب الغير اخلاقي،… pic.twitter.com/B2VWluDSEc
— MOATH | معاذ (@M0ATH) March 28, 2024
Buried in the sand
Over the following 54 days, she said she believed she was a widow. It wasn’t until she was released that she realized her husband was still alive and that the soldier had staged a mock execution to frighten them.
Alduhdouh said that afterwards, the soldiers buried her with some men under a cover of sand. They kept them in the pit for some time before they were pulled out and transported to a detention center.
Shortly after, she was forced to ride in an Israeli military truck, as depicted in images that have since circulated. She said, “I was the only woman among dozens of men.”
They were taken to the border area where she saw three other women from the Abu Zour family. For three days, they were left without any food. Alduhdouh was then transferred to another detention center in Jerusalem, where she was stripped and her belongings confiscated.
“They took all my money and the gold I kept in my socks, in addition to my ID and my mobile phone.” “Then they interrogated me again about the events of October 7th, and asked me about the whereabouts of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.”
With a poignant tone, she adds: “I cried and begged the officer to take me home to my children because I didn’t understand what he was saying. He said to me, ‘I won’t send you home until our children in Gaza return home.'”
Duhaduh says that the Israeli forces then transferred her to another detention center in Be’er Sheva, where she was beaten, tortured, and kicked directly on her cesarean scar.
After being injured during the beatings, Hadeel Alduhdouh said she expected the Israeli army to return her to Gaza. Instead, she says, she was transferred to Damon Prison in Israel, where she was tortured for six days before being transferred to the Kerem Shalom crossing along the fence separating Gaza.
Hadeel Alduhdouh said, “They left us there and ordered us to head towards Gaza without turning our heads back.”
She continued, “I arrived at a facility belonging to the United Nations in Rafah – southern Gaza Strip -,” where she learned that her husband was still alive and had been released a few days earlier. But her children were still in Gaza City – one with her mother-in-law, and the other with her mother-in-law.
