Palestinian detainees have spoken of their shock at returning to a Gaza unrecognizable from the one from which they were taken, as some are released from Israeli detention with stories of brutal treatment.
Gaza no longer exists, Shadi Abu Sido, 35, shouted at cameras as he stepped off a bus in the southern city of Khan Younis on Monday. “It’s like a ‘Judgment Day’ scene,” he said of the destruction.
He was later reunited with his wife and children, who he said his captors had falsely told him had died.
Abu Sido is among 1,718 Palestinian detainees released in exchange for Israeli hostages, in addition to 250 security prisoners convicted of serious crimes, including murder. The detainees, taken captive since the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, did not face charges. The 20 surviving Israeli hostages held in Gaza were freed thanks to the exchange.
Abu Sido, a cameraman for a Lebanon-based television station who was arrested in March 2024 while filming at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told NBC News by phone that he was stripped naked, handcuffed and had a rib broken when he was first arrested 19 months ago. In prison, he says he was left handcuffed and blindfolded for weeks.
“No food, no bath, no talking, no lifting your head,” he said. Those who disobeyed were “hanged from the wall and beaten,” he added.
Abu Sido said soldiers harassed him about his work, and that an interrogator repeatedly punched him in the eye so that he lost the ability to operate a camera. He said he now needs specialized treatment that he fears may not be available in Gaza.
Moureen Kaki, a Palestinian-American aid worker with the nongovernmental medical organization Glia, was at Nasser Hospital on Monday when the freed detainees arrived for health checks, most appearing emaciated, limping and shrunken.
“Everyone was affected by scabies,” he said in a video call Tuesday night. “It wasn’t just one person who shared the same story of torture, of being denied food, of being forced to drink toilet water since the ceasefire was announced. It was every single person we spoke to who had the same stories. It was really horrible.”
He said three people who had been incarcerated for months arrived at the hospital with new gunshot wounds that appeared to have “happened in the span of the last three weeks.”
Israel also returned the bodies of 120 detainees. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry released photographs of what it said were bodies returned with signs of torture and with several fingers and toes missing.
The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the torture and abuse allegations. In a separate case in February, five Israeli reservists were accused of beating and stabbing a detainee, accused in one indictment of breaking his ribs, puncturing his lung and tearing his rectum.
Dozens of detainees released on Monday were health workers. Among them was Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, director of Al-Awda Hospital, detained during a raid in December 2023 when he ignored IDF warnings to leave and preferred to stay with his patients.
Muhanna, after almost two years in detention, addressed a crowd that gathered to welcome him to the hospital.
“They targeted the medical staff directly,” he said. “But we will never abandon our hospitals.”
The Israeli military has previously defended attacks on hospitals, repeatedly saying that medical facilities in Gaza were being used as bases of operations for Hamas.
According to the monitoring group Healthcare Workers Watch, there are at least 115 Gaza healthcare workers among the thousands of Palestinians still detained in Israel.
Among them is a prominent pediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, whose release, according to his family, had been approved. On Thursday, an Israeli court extended Abu Safiya’s detention for another six months.
