A reporter from Gaza recounts his captivity in Israel: “The worst 33 days of my life”

The gates of hell opened on December 7 for Diaa al Kahlout, a 38-year-old Palestinian journalist. That day in the morning, in Beit Lahia (northern Gaza), he was detained by the Israeli occupation troops along with several dozen men in the campaign that, according to what they have repeated since the war began on October 7, leads to out to end Hamas. They were forced to stay in their underwear in the middle of the street, as shown in the images recorded by the military and that went around the world amid a sea of ​​criticism. In them, Al Kahlout himself is seen sitting on the ground along with more than a hundred detainees.

It was the beginning of more than a month of captivity in Israeli territory between torture, interrogations and humiliation that ended with his release and return to Gaza on January 9 without charges or accusations, according to the story he himself gave to this newspaper through of phone calls and messages. “They have been the worst 33 days of my entire life,” he said last week from the tent he shares with other displaced people in Rafah, next to the border with Egypt. His fear is that Israel's military operations will reach that southern end of the Strip where, like him, hundreds of thousands of displaced people gather.

“About 150 Israeli soldiers and officers arrived in Beit Lahia and took us out of my father's house along with several neighbors and relatives. Afterwards, they gathered us together and asked us to take off our clothes except our underwear. They tied us up, put us in military trucks and transported us to the Zikim military base. [primera playa de Israel, al norte de la Franja]”explains the reporter, head of the newspaper's Gaza delegation Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed (pan-Arab media based in London and owned by the Qatari company Fadaat Media). According to his testimony, in the Strip he was subjected to the first interrogation by what he considers to be an agent of the Shin Bet (the Israeli internal security service), who asked him if he was part of Hamas. “I denied it and told him that he was a journalist. From there, the investigation focused on the reports he had carried out, my journalistic relationships and my sources. They then beat me and threw me to the ground. I ended up with a mouth full of sand.” When he expressed his complaints, insisting that they had nothing to do with the combatants, he claims they gagged him with duct tape to stop him from talking. “They made fun of me and said in English: 'Journalist' [periodista]”, Add.

After a few hours in that area of ​​Zikim, the group of detainees, including Al Kahlout, was transferred to a military prison, a facility that does not depend on the prison system, and which the reporter estimates is located in the desert of the Negev, east of Gaza. “During the transfer, I was attacked and beaten; The handcuffs hurt my hands and the blindfolds hurt my eyes. Upon arrival, they placed us in a brick room. We sleep on a mat and with only a blanket,” he explains. He insists on the harsh conditions in which the military kept them: “During the entire detention period we were blindfolded and handcuffed; we were not allowed to talk to other prisoners; They threatened us with death; They accused us of belonging to Hamas and said we should die. “They punished us by kneeling for long hours.”

On the ninth day came the next interrogation, which he describes as “normal”, with personal questions, related to his profession or where he was on October 7, when the war began, after the massacre of some 1,200 people in Israel organized by Hamas. . On December 25, they took him away again, the journalist recalls. “They began to take off my clothes, searched me and hung me by my hands amid beatings and insults.” He believes he was again in the hands of the Shin Bet.

Food, he says, was limited to two slices of bread with a little cheese for breakfast and dinner and another two slices with a little tuna for lunch. Sometimes they had to take turns going to the bathroom for up to an hour. At no time during his captivity was he authorized to communicate with either his family or his lawyer, Al Kahlout denounces. He bitterly remembers the insults he received because he couldn't stand being on his knees for up to 16 hours a day. His release came with a sad surprise. His father-in-law had died in a bombing on December 13, when his father, his wife and one of his children were also injured.

On December 20, International Amnesty denounced the “inhuman and degrading treatment” of the group detained in Beit Lahia before all of them disappeared, since their whereabouts were never reported. Shortly before, the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights reported the death of six Palestinians, who were in Israeli custody in different locations. On December 16, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had already sounded the alarm, after receiving “numerous disturbing reports from northern Gaza about mass arrests, ill-treatment and forced disappearances of possibly thousands of Palestinian men and boys, as well as several women and girls, at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces.” The Israeli authorities justified the arrests in Beit Lahia and other enclaves in the northern Strip on the grounds that these people had disobeyed orders to leave what they considered a Hamas stronghold.

An Israeli military spokesman, when asked about Al Kahlout's case, explains: “As part of the army's activities in the combat zone, people suspected of participating in terrorist activities are being detained and interrogated. People who do not participate in terrorist activities are released.” These detainees, he adds, are treated “in accordance with international law,” he adds. “It is often necessary for terrorist suspects to hand over their clothing so that it can be searched and to ensure that they are not hiding explosive vests or other weapons,” comments the same source without responding to the reporter's accusations of torture and ill-treatment.

Since he was released, Diaa al Kahlout – married and father of five children, one of them with cerebral palsy – remains in Rafah (southern Gaza) separated from his family, who remain on the opposite end of this territory without the possibility of moving around. war. The family left their home after receiving a threatening call from the Israeli army on October 8, in the first hours of the military response that has already left almost 27,000 dead in Gaza, around 70% women and minors. The family was then forced to move to the reporter's father's house in Beit Lahia. The seven settled in the same room, while Al Kahlout continued recounting the war and sending texts to the newspaper's offices in Doha and London.

“Our life was good before October 7th. We lived in a beautiful house in the Karama neighborhood in northwest Gaza. We also had a car and my children studied in private schools. He was educating them and they were learning English so that they could find a better future. The house and the vehicle have been destroyed by the army,” she laments.

Separated from his family, Diaa al Kahlout is trying these days to recover the practice of journalism from Rafah amidst constant pain and nightmares that sometimes prevent him from falling asleep. Consequences of weeks of captivity; like the 20 kilos of weight he lost. “It was the best thing about prison,” he jokes from the tent, which serves as a home and office, in a territory where, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, in its acronym in English) , from October 7, 2023 to January 31 78 Palestinian reporters have died in which it is considered the most lethal conflict for informants of the modern era. Despite everything, Diaa al Kahlout is clear: “I have never thought about leaving my job. I am a professional journalist and I only care about people's suffering. “My children have asked me to leave Gaza, to think seriously about emigrating because they don't want to lose me again.”

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