[News] Gaza workers stranded in Israel were tortured, interrogated

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/gaza-workers-stranded-in-israel-were-arrested-beaten-and-tortured/?ml_recipient=105736583666206251&ml_link=105736347979876139&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2023-11-24&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Gaza workers stranded in Israel were tortured, interrogated
Aseel Mousa - November 23, 2023
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Ahmad, 58, has been working in Israel as a mechanic since he was 24 years
old. He worked in Israel for nearly 20 years until Hamas seized power in
the Gaza Strip in 2007. Then, after nearly 17 years of a brutal Israeli
siege on the Gaza Strip, he returned a year and a half ago to work in
Ashdod as a mechanic.

The moment the Palestinian resistance began its attack on October 7, Israel
declared war, and Palestinian workers who had been working in Israel were
stranded.

“I have been working in Israel for two and a half months,” Ahmad told
*Mondoweiss*. “I visited my family in Gaza only once, and when Israel
declared war, I immediately decided to return home, but Israel bombed the
Erez crossing, so I had no way to return to my family.”

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To check in on the status of the validity of their work permit, Palestinian
workers sign in to an app run by the Coordinator of Government Activities
in the Territories (COGAT), an organ of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. If
the work permit is revoked, they get notified with a text message.

After the launch of ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, the Israeli
authorities revoked all work permits without informing the workers. Israel
then conducted a large-scale detention campaign against the stranded
workers, nearly doubling
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israel-steps-up-its-war-against-palestinian-prisoners/>
the Palestinian prison population overnight.

Ahmad stayed in the car shop with his colleague Waseem, also from Gaza, for
nearly two weeks after the Israeli authorities suspended work permits. This
meant that the presence of Ahmad and all Gazan workers in Israel became
illegal.

“I felt like I was someone sitting on hot coals,” Ahmad said. “I was
terrified for my family and loved ones in the Gaza Strip, [because] I know
the brutality of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip. I have lived
through five Israeli invasions, and this is now the sixth.”

Two weeks into Ahmad’s time spent staying in the car shop, Israeli
authorities raided the garage and arrested Ahmad and his colleague.

“Upon arrest, the occupation forces assaulted me by beating and abusing
me,” he told *Mondoweiss*. “Waseem disappeared from that moment, and I have
not recieved any news of him since.”

Ahmad was taken to Ashdod Police station and interrogated.

“We were 11 people in a cell no larger than 4 square meters,” he said. “The
police interrogated us for long hours, asking me about so many people. But
I don’t know anyone but my relatives and some friends, as I spend most of
my time at work.”

They asked him where he lives in Gaza, and after he answered them, they
pulled up a computer screen and showed him a picture of his house to
indicate that they already know exactly where he lived.

“He then asked me about Hamas and other Palestinian factions,” Ahmad said.
“He tried to pressure me, but I honestly have nothing to do with them, so I
could not answer. I know nothing.”

During the investigation, the Israeli authorities took saliva samples,
fingerprints, and mug shots. “I told the policeman investigating me that I
am an old man, and am about to turn 60,” Ahmad said. “And I have never
entered a police station in my entire life.”

“After that, they blindfolded us, and the occupation forces put chains on
our feet and beat us. They then took us to an unknown area.”

“I felt like I would die of hunger and fatigue.”
Ahmad

Some workers believed that they were in Ofer Prison outside Ramallah since
they could hear the call to prayer in the distance. Some of the workers
used to visit Ramallah and could recognize its buildings, and they said
that the buildings they saw from afar looked like Ramallah buildings.

“We didn’t eat for two days,” Ahmad said. “I felt like I would die of
hunger and fatigue.”

They then transferred the detained Gaza workers to a training site for the
Israeli army, which lacked even the bare minimum requirements for humane
conditions.

“The occupation forces put us in wards,” Ahmad recounted. “We were
approximately 250 people packed in an area not exceeding half a dunam
[about 500 square meters].”

“We slept on the ground on pebbles,” he continued. “We only had a small
piece of bread and some jam for breakfast. They weren’t giving enough food
to anyone.”

Ahmad asserts that the condition of the bathrooms was miserable, and they
were left exposed to the elements. “It was very cold. We were in an almost
empty area, and the rain fell on our heads,” he said. “We did not sleep at
night, as Israeli intelligence was summoning us all the time, either to
transfer us to another ward without the slightest reason or to interrogate
us.”

Ahmad waited for his turn to be interrogated from ten in the evening until
two in the morning, sitting on the gravel with his eyes closed. After
investigating Ahmad, the Israeli intelligence accused him of being a liar
and told him that it had not issued him a permit to work in Israel again.

“After being violently investigated and searched, the occupation forces
told me: Run, run!” Ahmad recounted. “And I ran for approximately 300
meters, and they returned me to a ward other than the one I was in just to
distract me and disorient me by putting me in a new war with strangers.”

“An old man told me that his back was stained with blood.”
Ahmad

According to Ahmad, many of the workers were subjected to interrogation by
the Shin Bet and Israeli intelligence several times, and some of them set
upon by police dogs.

“An old man, a Gaza worker in Israel, told me that his back was stained
with blood,” Ahmad said. “And that the Israeli occupation forces stripped
him completely, put him in a transparent nylon bag, put him on the ground,
turned on air conditioners on him, and beat him severely until he almost
died.”

“It’s been said that three people were killed by such torture because they
could not bear it.” Ahmad said. “Their bodies are being tortured.”
Return to Gaza after tortue

On November 3, at approximately 11 p.m., the Israeli occupation put Israeli
workers on a bus, blindfolded them, handcuffed them, and tied their legs to
chains. They did not tell them where they would be transported. They did
not know whether they would be going back to their homes in Gaza or the
West Bank.

“I stayed on the bus from approximately 11 p.m. until 11 a.m. on the second
day. The person whose feet were tied to my feet was diabetic and kept
vomiting the whole way. We begged the Israeli soldier to untie his feet and
hands, but she refused. This is the true face of the occupation. They do
not have the slightest bit of humanity.”

The workers arrived at the Kerem Shalom crossing and walked a distance of
one and a half kilometers to reach the nearest car that would take them
home.

Ahmad mentions that the occupation forces confiscated his identity, permit,
and 11,000 shekels and told him that he would find them in Gaza, but he
arrived in Gaza and did not find any of them!

Ahmad says that Israel claims humanity and conveys it to the world through
pictures that falsify the truth. “Only once did they offer us tea while we
were out in the open, and they photographed us when they did!” Ahmad said
bitterly. “When we arrived in the Gaza Strip, they distributed water to us
and took pictures of us, but we refused to drink the water that was offered
to us.”

“When I arrived at the neighborhood where I live, I could not easily enter
my house to fetch money to pay the driver who gave me a ride. The
occupation confiscated all my money. I found that many of the houses
adjacent to my house had been bombed, and rubble was filling the streets,”
he added.
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