Dr. Marouf during his work in the hospital before his arrest (Reuters)

A Palestinian doctor said that Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip stormed a hospital where he works, detained him, and mistreated him for 45 days, including depriving him of sleep, constantly shackling him, and blindfolding him before his release last week.

Last December, while Dr. Saeed Abdel Rahman Marouf was working at the Arab National Hospital in Gaza City, he was surrounded by the occupation forces.

The occupation forces handcuffed Dr. Marouf's hands and legs and blindfolded him throughout his imprisonment for about 7 weeks.

Marouf recounts his suffering and that of the detainees in the occupation detention centers. He says that his jailers ordered him to sleep in places covered in gravel, without a mattress, pillow, or cover, amid loud music, “as if it was a party.”

In a tone of pain, Marouf said, “In Israeli prisons, the torture was very, very, very severe. I am a doctor and I weighed 87 kilograms. In 45 days, I lost more than 25 kilograms of my weight.”

I lost “balance, I lost focus, I lost all my feeling. We were shackled for 45 days, we were handcuffed for 45 days.” In his attempt to describe the situation in the prison and what he was exposed to, Marouf says, “How do you describe torture and how do you describe humiliation inside prisons? Only those who lived it will reach the truth.” ".

Last connection

The doctor, who spent all his time in the hospital since the beginning of the aggression against Gaza, was unable to determine “his place of detention because he was blindfolded the entire time, and he did not know whether he was detained inside or outside Gaza.” Upon his release, the Red Cross transferred him from the Kerem Shalom crossing, where It was taken down.

Since the arrest of Doctor Marouf, he has not heard any news from his family, and he does not know whether they survived the occupation soldiers’ incursion into Gaza City under intense artillery bombardment or not.

The doctor is known after his release (media)

No information

Marouf held back his tears as he talked about his last phone call to his daughter, when the occupation soldiers called on loudspeakers for all the doctors and medical staff to leave the hospital.

His family was in the family home in Gaza City with his other children, his wife, and about 15 to 20 of his relatives.

He said, "While the soldier was calling on the loudspeaker that the doctors and medical personnel must leave the hospital, my daughter called me and said, 'Dad, the bombing has reached the place. What should we do?'. My daughter is not alone. There are 5 children with their mother, with their aunt, with their aunt's husband, meaning the house in it." At least more than 20 or 25 people. I said to her as follows: “My daughter, if I tell you to go out and God forbid the fate will happen, I will suffer a kind of psychological torture, and if I tell you to stay and the fate will happen, the same result will happen... Submit your matter to God.” If you want to go out - Father - then go out, if you want to stay, then stay, and I am with you in the same trench. "I will now leave with the soldier and I do not know my fate."

“From that moment until today, I have not known, nor have I received any information about my children or my wife.”

The occupation soldiers deliberately insulted and abused the prisoners of the Gaza Strip (Reuters)

Families in Gaza were dispersed due to the destruction and the loss of communications. Access to many areas became difficult, and family members lost their ability to communicate with each other, with most communications networks disrupted.

Marouf believes that he was one of hundreds of prisoners in the same place, and that “every one of us wished for death and could not go away. He wished for death from the severity of the torture.”

He said, "I am a pediatrician and have been working in this field for 23 years. I have not committed any humanitarian crime. My weapons are my pen, notebook, and stethoscope. I did not leave the place, and I was treating children in hospitals."

“My feeling when the commander called to bring us to the place of the tanks, or the place to surrender ourselves, was that I thought that I would stay with them for a few hours and leave the place, and my other feeling was that if they took me and some colleagues, they would treat us well because we are doctors.”

Marouf returned to Gaza and hung the stethoscope around his neck to resume his work treating children, and the sound of children crying and the worried whispers of parents around him returned again.

Source: Reuters