They lived in "movement graves," enduring torture, starvation, and isolation. Freed Palestinian prisoners from Gaza, released as part of the latest exchange, returned to a homeland in ruins, searching for any surviving family. "Who is still alive?" was their first question.
Among them, journalist Yousef Sharaf, arrested during the raid on Al-Shifa Medical Complex, had lost 37 family members. "We were cut off from the world, begging for months just to shave," he said. Medical neglect was rampant—Sharaf endured makeshift surgery with a razor blade and chlorine. A guard mocked him: "Let Hamas bring you medicine."
Ibrahim Arqan described intensified abuse before the prisoner exchange. "They treat animals better than prisoners," he said. "These prisons are mass graves unfit even for the dead." Ahmed Dabash, upon release, learned his wife and daughter had been killed. "I waited to hold them again, but they were gone."
The International Committee of the Red Cross condemned Israel’s degrading treatment of prisoners, while human rights groups denounced the systematic torture. Thousands remain behind bars, their suffering an urgent humanitarian crisis.
