piece of bread each day.

After days, they took me for interrogation, which was based on beatings and torture.

They put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body.

They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a whole day.

My testicles swelled up and my left ear bled.

They used the worst kind of torture; I was wishing for death in a crazy way.

I was asked about Hamas leaders and people I didn’t know and hadn’t met. They asked me where I was on October 7, and I said I was at home and had only gone out to get food for my wife.

They beat me. Then they put me back in the freezing room with the loud disco music, and again left me there, naked, for days, and gave me only very little bread and water.

Then they took me into interrogation again. They opened WhatsApp on my phone and asked me about neighbors from my building and where they worked. I told them that some of them worked at UNRWA or the International Committee of the Red Cross and some I didn’t know.

From there, they took me to a different pen, where they left me naked for about or days.

I got very little food and drink there too, and they made me wear a diaper.

After that, I was taken into interrogation again. I was asked about my work and about car dealers I have business connections with. During the interrogation, they showed me a video and told me they were Islamic Jihad people. I told them I didn’t know them.

During the interrogation, I was given electric shocks and beaten so badly that I passed out.

My foot got swollen from the electric shocks. When I came to, I asked them to bandage it and they did.

The interrogation continued, and then they took me back to the room with the disco and left me there for days. When I asked the soldier guarding me to go to the bathroom, he brought me a container and told me to pee into it.

I developed wounds, bleeding, and pain in my body, especially the left leg, which had bruises and wounds full of pus that hurt badly. My leg turned blue and nearly reached a state of necrosis.

I was kept in the pen for days, and then I had surgery, without anesthesia, on my swollen left leg.

I asked for anesthetics and they said I wasn't in a position to ask for anything and ordered me to keep quiet.

When I screamed in pain, they hit me in the abdomen with a plastic stick until I shut up.

They drained the pus from my leg.

Then they moved me back to the pen, where I was forced to kneel every day for weeks, handcuffed and blindfolded.

The bandage on my leg was changed only once. We showered once a week and got clean underwear only once during that time.

I was offered to work with the army and refused. One of the officers or soldiers conveyed condolences for the death of my father and mother, my family, and my wife. That’s when I had a nervous breakdown and I passed out.

After days of detention, I was put on a bus with other detainees, and we drove for a long time.

We arrived at the Karam Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, where the soldiers told us we weren’t allowed to talk to the media about the torture we’d been through.

They gave us a bag with our personal effects, but I didn’t find the money, the gold jewelry, or my phone in mine. I only found the phone charger, my UNRWA refugee card, and my ID card.

I told the soldier I wanted my things, and he said I had nothing and that if I spoke about it, I would go back to prison.

We went to the Palestinian side of the crossing and UNRWA staff were waiting for us there. I called my family in northern Gaza, and they were shocked when they heard my voice. They were sure I’d been killed.

My father and mother were so excited that they put themselves at risk and came to Rafah to be with me. They got to the checkpoint in a cart and walked from there.

They told me my wife had given birth to our daughter while I was in prison, that she was malnourished because of the hunger in the northern Gaza Strip, and that our daughter was born weighing kg.

My parents and I lived in a tent in Rafah until the army raided the area, and now we are in a makeshift tent in Deir al-Balah.

Conditions here are terrible.

I keep in touch with my wife over the phone. She keeps moving with the baby from place to place because of the bombings.

Much of the torture that the other men and I endured was being hit in the genitals and sensitive areas, and having cigarettes put out on our mouths, our bodies, and our genitals.

My toe almost had to be amputated as a result of the electricity torture.

At one point, they took a man next to me, and they let him lie on the ground. They took off his underwear. They released a dog on him, and the dog raped the guy.

They were enjoying themselves in the ways of torture.

Some guys were tortured with an electric baton that they inserted into prisoners’ rectums.

One man died as a result of this torture.

If international law and human rights are not safeguarded during war, they are unnecessary in times of peace."