Freed From Israeli Prisons, Gazans Pass From ‘One Hell Into Another’

For more than 20 months during the two-year war in Gaza, Dr. Ahmad Mhanna was locked away in Israel’s prison network with thousands of other Palestinians taken from Gaza. When he returned to the enclave earlier this month as part of a prisoners-for-hostages exchange deal, he said he left one grim reality for another.

“Life in Gaza, like prison, has been torturous, full of suffering and hunger,” Mhanna said. “In prison I hadn’t experienced feeling a full stomach in more than 600 days. I came to learn that my wife, who was in Gaza the whole time, hadn’t either.”