Before releasing him, Israeli prison guards decided to give Naseem al-Radee a farewell gift. They bound his hands, placed him on the ground and beat him without mercy, saying goodbye the same way they had said hello: with their fists.
Radee’s first sight of Gaza in nearly two years was blurry; a boot to the eye left him with blurred vision two days later. Vision problems added to the laundry list of ailments he gained during his 22-month stay in an Israeli prison.
The 33-year-old government employee from Beit Lahiya was arrested by Israeli soldiers at a school-turned-displacement shelter in Gaza on 9 December 2023. He spent more than 22 months in captivity in Israeli detention centres – including 100 days in an underground cell – before being released alongside 1,700 other Palestinian detainees back to Gaza on Monday.
Like the other detainees released back to Gaza, Radee was never charged with a crime. And like many others, his detention was marked by torture, medical neglect and starvation at the hands of Israeli prison guards.
His description of his time in prison is part of what the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says is a policy of abuse towards Palestinians detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres.
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