Palestinian women mourn a loved one killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on 10 July, 2024 (Reuters)
When darkness falls in Gaza, no one can be certain if they will live out the night.
If they do survive this collective punishment, Palestinians also risk being abducted and disappeared from their homes during the night.
As the world marked the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on 26 June, reports of widespread torture and abuse were emerging from all corners of Gaza and Israeli detention and torture centres in the desert.
In observance of the occasion, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated: “Torturers must never be allowed to get away with their crimes, and systems that enable torture should be dismantled or transformed.”
Yet the institutions meant to prevent such crimes against humanity are either feckless or indifferent. Thirty-seven years after the Convention Against Torture came into effect, violations of human dignity not only persist but have escalated.
In Gaza today, Palestinians are subjected to two types of mass torture: the first is the abduction from their homes by Israeli soldiers during night-time military raids – stripping them down of “anything that resembles human beings” in Israeli torture camps. The second is the infliction of such horrific levels of violence on the entire civilian population that it constitutes torture.
It was early February when Israel launched an incursion into the southern city of Khan Younis. The Abu Sultan family tried to flee their home during the day but were not fast enough. Israeli tanks had encircled their neighbourhood of al-Amal, sealing off any chance of escape.
A group of soldiers and their menacing dog stormed the home of Saada Abu Sultan, an elderly woman who stood frozen in fear in the hallway alongside her brother, Mohammed, and husband, Abdel Karim.
In what appears to have become a trend, the dog pounced on 72-year-old Saada, savagely mauling her as her brother tried to intervene. Mohammed was shot in the chest and left bleeding on the floor.
As confirmed this week in +972 Magazine, Israel’s “free-for-all” directive allowed soldiers to open fire and commit summary executions of civilians – a clear violation of the laws of war.
In the Abu Sultan home, the soldiers applied their “freedom” with vigour, spraying bullets indiscriminately and injuring several family members, including young children, who were taking cover on the ground floor.
Amid the pandemonium and terrified screams of women and children, the soldiers ordered the family to lie down on the ground. The room erupted in gunfire, and the soldiers detained three of Saada’s adult children: her eldest daughter, Nisreen, 52, and her two sons, Husam, 50, and Mohammed, 45, who was named after his uncle. After an hour of horror, the soldiers left the house. Bleeding profusely and unable to move, Saada’s brother, Mohammed, who had been sheltering at his sister’s home since December 2023, pleaded for medical help.
Saada did not want to leave her brother behind but reluctantly agreed to get him emergency care.
In a journey that would have normally taken 20 minutes on foot but extended to an agonising four hours – as they dodged bullets and hid from relentless shelling – Saada, her sister-in-law and their children finally reached Nasser Hospital.
Fuelled by adrenaline and the urgency to save her brother’s life, Saada couldn’t think of the severity of her own injuries. The dog attack had torn the flesh and smashed the bones in her arm, requiring extensive medical treatment, including platinum implants.