Sami al-Saei said he heard the Israeli prison guards who raped him laughing through the assault, before they left him lying blindfolded, handcuffed and in agony on the floor to take a cigarette break.
At least one of the group knew a crime was being committed and intervened, not to stop the torture but to prevent its documentation. Al-Saei said he heard the man warning others “don’t take a photo, don’t take a photo” as they attacked.
He bled from his rectum for more than three weeks after the assault, which happened soon after he was detained in February 2024. He described sexual torture that lasted more than 20 minutes including beatings on his buttocks, a guard applying extreme pressure to his genitals, and forced anal penetration with two different objects.
“I tried to prevent them by clenching my muscles (in my anus), but I could not. They forced it in very deep, it was extremely painful,” he said in an interview about his ordeal. “I don’t know how loudly I screamed from the pain.”
It left him in so much pain that he collapsed twice when ordered to stand up and walk afterwards. Moved to an overcrowded cell, al-Saei said he received no medical treatment and was forced to use wads of toilet paper to staunch the blood.
The 47-year-old father of six was held without charge or trial until June 2025. About 40 days after his release, he posted a video on TikTok detailing the attack, defying the extreme social stigma and Israeli warnings against going public about abuse in jails.
“I could not stay silent. I have a moral responsibility to say what happened to me and other prisoners,” he said.
The Israeli Prison Service has begun preparations to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
Huda Abu Abed feared only long waits and Israeli checks when she was told she could return to Gaza after two years in Egypt.
At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.
Chris Tackett started tracking extremism in Texas politics about a decade ago, whenever his schedule as a Little League coach and school board member would allow. At the time, he lived in Granbury, 40 minutes west of Fort Worth. He’d noticed that a local member of the state legislature, Mike Lang, had become a vocal advocate for using public money for private schools – despite the fact that Lang campaigned as a supporter of public education.
In their time as real estate brokers, the Israeli-American Alexander brothers – twins Alon and Oren and older brother Tal – were known as “closers”, the salesmen who could a get a sale over finish line, often to wealthy hedge funders who were then making hay in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
One of Gaza ’s last functioning large hospitals condemned the decision by Doctors Without Borders to pull out of operations over concerns about armed men, claiming on Sunday that the facility had installed civilian police for security.
A Chicago teenager who garnered national attention for fighting for her father's release after he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2025 has died, a family spokesperson said.
