DUBAI: Palestinian author Nasser Abu Srour, who was released last month after 32 years in captivity, said torture and brutality inside Israeli prisons had intensified in the past two years, turning detention centers into “another front” of the conflict in Gaza.
Abu Srour was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed under a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal. He was exiled to Egypt, where he was placed in a five-star hotel in Cairo — a jarring contrast, he said, to the conditions he endured during imprisonment.
After Oct. 7, 2023, beatings and deprivation of food and warmth increased in prisons. Even the guards’ uniforms were replaced with ones bearing tags that read “fighters” or “warriors,” he said.
Abu Srour added: “They started acting like they were in a war, and this was another front, and they started beating, torturing, killing like warriors.”
He described how areas without security cameras became “places for brutality,” where guards would tie prisoners’ hands behind their heads, throw them to the ground, and trample on them.
“All cultural life in the prison ended in the last two years,” he said, as all reading and writing materials were confiscated. Daily rations were minimal, and prisoners were only given one set of thin clothes.
He recalled that prisoners were always hungry, and because their bodies were weak they “couldn’t handle even a medium temperature.”
He added: “Whenever someone was leaving prison, everyone would try to become their friends so they would get their T-shirt or underwear, or anything.”
Abu Srour took part in the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising between 1987 and 1993, when he was charged as an accomplice in the death of an Israeli Shin Bet security officer.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1993, based on a confession extracted under torture.
In his more than three decades behind bars, Abu Srour completed a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in political science and turned to writing. He began composing poetry and other works that were smuggled out of prison.
His memoir “The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on Hope and Freedom,” dictated to a relative through phone calls over two years, has been translated into seven languages and is a finalist for the Arab Literature Prize.
After years of torture and unheeded appeals, Abu Srour struggled to believe until the final moment that his name was on the list of prisoners to be released after the Oct. 10 ceasefire.
He said: “They were calling out cell numbers, and I was sitting on my bed in room number six feeling like I am not part of it.
“There were so many times when I should have been part of it over all those years. But the whole thing is so huge and so painful, I didn’t want to interact. It was a defense mechanism.”
The 24 hours before his release were particularly painful, as prisoners were subjected to an intense final round of beatings.
During the 48-hour transfer that followed, prisoners were not allowed to open the curtains on the buses until they reached Egypt.
It was only then that Abu Srour saw the sky for the first time outside prison walls.
