‘They tortured him to death’: Gaza detainee abducted from hospital recounts murder and rape in Israeli dungeon
“Abu Abdullah Kamal Radi is dead. They tortured him to death. May God have mercy on him.”
As Palestinian detainees are released from Israeli rape-and-torture dungeons, testimonies of inhumane abuse that result in extrajudicial murder continue to mount. One recently released detainee from Gaza has testified to witnessing two deaths resulting from torture and one rape during his time in the Israeli dungeons.
Musab Madoukh was abducted from Al-Shifa Hospital during the Israeli army’s assault on Gaza’s largest medical facility on March 18, 2024. The siege of Al-Shifa began on March 18 and by the time the Israelis had finished with the hospital two weeks later, a WHO spokesman said, “Al-Shifa has gone, it’s no longer able to function in any way, shape or form” as a medical centre.
Doctors, nurses, patients, and their relatives were brutally assaulted, and many were killed during the two-week siege. After the Israeli withdrawal, multiple mass graves — containing at least 400 bodies in total — were discovered inside the hospital courtyard and other areas. The discovered bodies were decomposed, burned, and mutilated. Some of them were in medical scrubs, while others still had catheters and cannulas still attached, testifying to the indiscriminate nature of the Israeli slaughter in a facility protected by humanitarian laws, even in war zones.
Post-siege photos of Al-Shifa provided stark evidence of the scale of destruction inflicted during the Israeli assault.
Survivors of the assault were abducted by the Israelis and taken to various rape-and-torture dungeons.
Madoukh’s testimony, published by the Palestinian Center for the Defense of Prisoners, lays bare what transpired following the siege of Al-Shifa Hospital and the treatment of Palestinians kidnapped from the facility by the Israelis.
The siege of Al-Shifa Hospital
“I was abducted by Israeli army gangs from Al-Shifa Hospital on March 18, 2024,” Madoukh told the centre in a testimony published on Wednesday. “I was displaced to the hospital after my house was completely destroyed and all my family members had been killed.
“That night, we were surprised by the arrival of a large force of Israeli soldiers in military vehicles and armoured personnel carriers. They did not stop firing at the hospital from the moment they arrived, announcing through loudspeakers that the hospital was under siege and ordering all those inside — patients, their companions, and medical staff — not to move around the rooms or wards or to look out of the windows.
“After about a full day under siege, they ordered everyone in the hospital to go out to the main courtyard, remove their clothes, raise their hands, and move towards the vehicles deployed throughout the hospital and in the main courtyard.
“Drones were firing and filming our movement to the main courtyard, in addition to cameras we found installed there. They ordered us through loudspeakers to go to these cameras and stand in front of them. I remember that I remained naked while it started to rain for more than three hours. At that moment, I felt the bitter cold gnawed at my body, and I could not continue until they called us again and began taking those who had been filmed inside the outpatient clinic building to investigate the place.”
The murder of Abu Abdullah Kamal Radi
Madoukh then recounted harrowing details of detainee abuse, including beatings — particularly on the genitals by female Israeli torturers — verbal abuse, and denial of access to toilets. “They told us not to ask to use the toilets, to pray, or to ask for drink or food, and that anyone disobeying these instructions would be killed,” Madoukh said.
The threat of killings turned out to be true at least in two cases that Madoukh witnessed himself.
“One of the prisoners came to us after a harsh interrogation session,” Madoukh told the centre about a detainee who died of torture in front of him. “He appeared extremely tired, and his body was so exhausted that he could neither move nor even speak.
“When it was time for breakfast, he asked me to feed him. When I started putting food in his mouth, he told me that he had not had a bite or a sip of water for a week. While I was helping him, on the third bite I was putting in his mouth, he raised his hand and indicated that he didn’t want to continue. He lay down on the ground immediately and closed his eyes. All I understood was that he was tired and needed rest. When the soldier saw him lying on the ground, he asked us to wake him up and make him stand on his feet. When we tried to do that, we found that he had passed away and had not moved a muscle.”
Madoukh told the centre with tears: “Abu Abdullah Kamal Radi is dead. They tortured him to death. May God have mercy on him.”
The murder of Islam al-Sarsawi
Madoukh testified to witnessing another murder of a Palestinian detainee at the hands of the Israelis. They let loose dogs on the victim and laughed out loud as he screamed and writhed in pain.
“I was transferred to another barracks, and as soon as I arrived, an assault squad of soldiers and dogs entered,” Madoukh said.
“These dogs attacked one of the prisoners, the prisoner Islam al-Sarsawi, as these dogs attacked him and bit him in different parts of his body while he was lying on the ground unable to resist them. While he was screaming, the soldiers’ laughter was louder and they ordered the dogs to continue, and our colleague’s frail body began to bleed. Afterwards, they left him with many wounds and threw him among us, and he did not receive any kind of treatment.
“After two days of pain and suffering, we found our colleague Islam al-Sarsawi reciting the shahada [the Islamic declaration of faith] and raising his index finger [to testify the oneness of God], and his soul had departed life inside one of the barracks of the Sde Teiman detention center. Afterwards, they changed the duty crew, as happened in the incident of the martyrdom of the prisoner Kamal Radi.”
(Note: The victim of the infamous Sde Teiman gang rape — which prompted the “right to rape” protests in Israel — was initially identified as Islam al-Sarsawi, as I reported in these pages. However, this proved to be a case of misidentification, and the victim of Sde Teiman abuse remains unnamed.)
The rape of a detainee
Madoukh also witnessed the rape of a detainee with an iron rod: “Less than a month after we were transferred from Ofer prison, we were returned to Sde Teiman detention center, and they put us in one of the barracks. Immediately, an assault unit came as usual with a large number of soldiers and dogs, and they called out to three of the prisoners, including me.
“A number of soldiers beat him, then took off his clothes, and put an iron rod in his anus and raped him with it in front of our eyes until he started bleeding from his anus while he was calling for help and no one answered him.
“After that, they beat me severely in the areas where I had fractures, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. Meanwhile, they subjected the third prisoner to electricity. They tortured him with electricity until he also fainted several times.”
Haunting testimonies, like Madoukh’s, from Israel’s rape-and-torture dungeons continue to pile up. Even an Israeli human rights organisation recently published a report listing 94 documented murders of Palestinians inside these dungeons. The report went on to say that “the true number of deaths is likely significantly higher than those documented here.”
Similarly, numerous testimonies of detainee rapes have been mounting, as more than 9,000 Palestinian detainees, most of them without any charges, continue to endure inhumane conditions inside the Israeli dungeons. Even Palestinian children, more than 350 of whom remain incarcerated in these facilities, have been subjected to brutal abuse.
Palestinian detainee groups and political factions have repeatedly appealed to global institutions to intervene, yet their appeals echo into a void. Meanwhile, the Israelis have been rewarded while live-streaming the ongoing Gaza Holocaust for over two years. They must feel untouchable for the crimes they commit inside dungeons hidden from the world’s eyes. So what if Palestinians continue to suffer and die — they have long been deemed expendable.
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These testimonies expose a systematic pattern of abuse and extrajudicial killings that the international community can no longer ignore. States and institutions must hold Israel accountable for violating international law and human rights. Silence in the face of such crimes is complicity.
May all the martyrs rest in peace and all zios in piss