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I was particularly shocked by one detail. During one interrogation, Khaled was accused of being a member of Islamic Jihad, which he again denied. “I’m only a farmer,” he replied. Khaled’s greatest fear was that his wife and children, one of whom had been waiting for a surgery, would be killed in an air strike. He told me that an Israeli intelligence officer showed Khaled a photo of them. “It was a photo from our family insurance card,” Khaled told me. He had no idea how the officer had gotten it. “Detention was a hardship in itself, but the threat to my family was a torment of another kind—just as heavy, if not worse,” he said.
After four days, the questioning stopped, and Khaled understood that his file was being closed. He was not released, however. He spent about a month in a different section of Sde Teiman. Eventually, he was moved to Al-Naqab (Negev) prison, where detainees slept in tents. “Soldiers would storm our tents and fire rubber bullets at our legs and knees,” he said. “Those who were injured were left to bleed.” He said that some of their wounds became infested with maggots.
Khaled learned of the ceasefire deal from some guards. On October 10th, the guards at Al-Naqab ordered him and several others to line up. Khaled assumed he was being moved to yet another prison, until he was taken to a place called Ward A. “That’s the ward for those scheduled for release,” Khaled said. “We all started to feel hopeful.” Two hours later, they were handcuffed and taken for fingerprinting, and their hope grew stronger.
Then the guards came and took away their blankets and mattresses. “We spent the next three nights sleeping on the cold floor,” Khaled said. They were given less food than before. “Fear crept back in,” he told me. “Still, we thought maybe they were lashing out because we were being set free.” He said that an intelligence officer eventually signalled that he was getting out, telling him, “If you do anything wrong, there won’t be any warnings. We’ll send a missile your way. Got it?”
After Khaled was finally released, he walked eight miles through devastated neighborhoods, from southern Gaza to a small town near Deir al-Balah. He was exhausted, but the closer he got to his wife and children the more excited he felt. At last, he reached a group of tents where his extended family was living. His young daughter was the first to spot him, and he lifted her into the air with joy. Then his other relatives rushed in, wrapping him in hugs.
He entered his immediate family’s tent, where his wife embraced him. He was afraid to ask where his three-year-old son was.
It turned out that the boy was only sleeping, lying on a thin blanket on the ground. Khaled knelt, called his son’s name, and leaned in for a kiss. His son stirred, half asleep, and blinked up at Khaled’s unfamiliar face. In the moments before he drifted off again, he did not seem to recognize his father.
When The New Yorker asked the Israeli military, or I.D.F., about the conditions that Khaled described, a spokesperson called them “baseless allegations.” The Israeli Prison Service, which operates Ofer and Al-Naqab prisons, has told the Washington Post that it maintains proper living conditions. But experiences similar to what Khaled shared—including extended kneeling, beatings, attacks by military dogs, and a lack of medical care—have been reported by human-rights groups, the United Nations, and news organizations. In June, 2024, the Times reported on Gazans who said they were strip-searched, blindfolded, and handcuffed and then taken to Sde Teiman, where they were held in a deafening “disco room” and subjected to physical abuse. “Any abuse of detainees, whether during their detention or during interrogation, violates the law and the directives of the I.D.F. and as such is strictly prohibited,” the I.D.F. said in a statement to the Times. Asked about air strikes that killed civilians, the I.D.F. told The New Yorker, “Throughout the war, the IDF has been operating in accordance with international law to protect the security of the State of Israel and its citizens against Hamas attacks aimed at civilians, by striking military targets.”
Last week, on Facebook, a friend from my home town of Beit Lahia posted a video of our old neighborhood. It shattered me. Not a single house remained standing. The dentist’s clinic on our street, a local clothing store, a feed mill where my father used to buy grain for our birds and rabbits, even a palm tree we used as a landmark—all of it had been levelled.
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Mosab Abu Toha
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