Palestinian journalist recounts rape by Israeli guards at Megiddo prison
Sami al-Sa’i, a Palestinian journalist and recently released prisoner, has recounted being raped by Israeli guards upon his arrival at the regime’s notorious Megiddo Prison.
In a testimony, al-Sa’i said the assault left him bleeding from his rectum for 22 days without any medical care.
“They forced me onto my hands with my face and knees on the floor and began beating me… they started inserting hard objects into my rectum,” he said.
“All while laughing, mocking and insulting me. … Because I didn’t want to talk to the other detainees about what had happened, I asked for tissues … and I began twisting them into strips and inserting them into my rectum to absorb the blood and stop it from leaking out. This went on for about 22 days.”
Detained for 16 months without charge, al-Sa’i also recounted the horrific suffering of fellow prisoners with scabies—left untreated as they cried and scratched themselves raw.
Only when the disease began spreading to the Israeli prison guards—who came to beat them or transfer them to court—was limited treatment finally provided, he noted.
In August 2024, video emerged of a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, south of the Israeli-occupied territories.
Ten soldiers were ultimately arrested for the rape on July 29. The soldiers belong to a unit known as Force 100, which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz.
Following the arrest of the reservists, far-right mobs, some of which included ministers, stormed the facility at Sde Teiman later the same day, defending the soldiers who had raped the prisoner.
Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also told Israeli media on the day of the reservists’ arrest that it was “shameful” for Israel to arrest “our best heroes.”
At about the same time, on being asked by Ahmad Tibi, one of the Arab MPs within the Israeli Knesset if it was legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum”, Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, responded: “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas fighter], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”
A report titled Welcome to Hell, published last August by the Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, includes interviews with 55 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention centers since October 7.
In firsthand accounts, Palestinian prisoners, the majority of whom were later released without charge at locations across the occupied Palestinian territory and Gaza revealed that they have been assaulted, insulted and sexually abused by guards.
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