DEIR EL-BALAH (Dispatches) – Faraj al-Samouni, 39, sits in a tent in a makeshift camp in Deir el-Balah, surrounded by his family who can hardly believe he is alive after months of Israeli captivity.
“My brothers didn’t recognize me when I was released,” he says. He is diminished, he lost 30kg (66 pounds) in captivity, 30 percent of his body weight.
It does not matter to his mother Zahwa, 56, who sits beaming next to him, welcoming visitors, many of them families of other prisoners seeking information about their detained relatives.
Faraj spent more than six months in captivity after he and his two brothers were arrested while walking down the so-called “safe corridor” on November 16 on their way to the south of Gaza.
In December, Al Jazeera spoke to Zahwa and her sister-wife Zeenat just after Faraj and his brothers Abdullah, 24, and Hamam, 16, were taken.
Abdullah and Hamam, who are Zeenat’s sons, are still held, with their fate unknown.
“It was a shock when I was arrested. I’m a farmer with no political activity,” Faraj says.
“I was walking through the safe corridor with my wife and children, carrying my daughter. Israeli soldiers called Abdullah over, Hamam was upset, and the soldiers called him over too,” Faraj recalls.
“I was upset and protesting that they had my brothers, so they noticed me. Abu blousa hamra [man in a red shirt], come here,” the soldier said.
“I handed my daughter to my wife and approached. They made us strip completely and handcuffed us.”
Faraj and roughly 75 other men remained handcuffed and blindfolded as soldiers beat them before transferring them somewhere he could not identify.
“They were barracks, the severe torture began there,” he says.
“The beatings focused on sensitive body parts. Female soldiers stomped on our heads with their metal-toed boots.”
Then came interrogations where Faraj was pressured for information about Hamas, its members, rocket launch sites, and details about October 7.
“When I denied any connection to Hamas or any military or political activity, the interrogator would go crazy, screaming: ‘You’re a liar!’ and beating me more.”
Faraj estimates he spent 30 days being in the barracks – fractures in his lower back and neck from the torture keeping him from resting.
“We were only allowed to shower once, and they wouldn’t give us food or water for days. They’d give us one loaf of bread for three people, and if you asked for anything, you were beaten.”
One day, he says, three young men returned from interrogations bleeding from their bottoms, unable to move.
They had been beaten and raped with sticks.
“We tried to support them as much as we could, demanding treatment. The only response was to give them half a paracetamol pill.”