‘We want to kill you’
Al-Sai, 44, a father from Tulkarm, has worked for years as a journalist in the occupied West Bank, reporting for Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV.
On 23 February 2024, Israeli forces raided his home during an intensive arrest campaign in the West Bank following the October 2023 war on Gaza. He was taken from his home and spent the next 16 months in Israeli custody under administrative detention.
Under the controversial practice, detainees are held without charge or trial based on secret evidence they are not permitted to see.
After an initial 19 days in military custody, al-Sai was transferred to Megiddo Prison. Upon arrival, he said he was handcuffed and blindfolded.
His first stop was the prison clinic. On the way, he could hear screams from other rooms.
“'Say long live the Israeli flag,'” he recalls hearing a guard, speaking fluent Arabic, shout at a prisoner. “'We want to kill you. We want to make you die.'
“At that moment, I knew I was entering a stage I had never experienced before,” said al-Sai, who had been arrested by Israeli forces three times before.
Inside the clinic, guards and medical staff accused him of being a member of Hamas, repeatedly threatening him that they “fuck, fuck, fuck” anyone associated with the group. He denied the accusation.
After an electrocardiogram and a brief examination, the doctor told the guards he was fit.
Al-Sai said he was blindfolded again and escorted by four to six guards, including a woman, through a series of corridors. Doors opened and closed. He was finally thrown to the ground.
At this point, al-Sai said, his trousers and underwear were pulled down, and he was ordered onto his knees. The beating began, with the guards striking him repeatedly on the head, back and legs.
“I felt close to death,” he said. “The pain was overwhelming. But I still didn’t know what they were going to do. Why did they remove my trousers?”
‘Reception party’
Moments later, he said, a solid object was forced into his rectum.
“I tried to resist. I clenched my body to stop it. That only made the pain worse. Eventually, I surrendered.”
The object was pushed deeper and twisted deliberately, he said. When he began screaming, a guard squeezed his testicles and pulled his penis.
“I screamed so loudly I thought my voice would leave the prison walls,” he said.
“I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t take it. I reached a point where I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.”
Throughout the assault, guards laughed. One addressed him directly.
“You are a journalist,” the guard said, according to al-Sai.
“We will bring all the journalists and do this to them. We will bring your wife, your sisters, your mother, and your son.”
At one point, he heard a guard say: “Bring me a carrot.” Another object was inserted.
Later, he learned from other detainees that vegetables, sticks and other objects were commonly used during such assaults.
A guard stood on his head with full body weight. Al-Sai feared his skull would burst. He also heard one guard tell another to “stop filming”, suggesting the assault may have been recorded.
“They said they were taking revenge for 7 October,” he said. “But I am not from Gaza. I am a journalist.”
The assault lasted about 25 minutes, he estimates. He was held in the room for nearly an hour.
Among prisoners, this assault is called “the reception party” - a violent attack involving sexual violence that many detainees face upon arrival at the prison. [MORE]
