A Palestinian prisoner demonstrates the various positions he was forced to take during his detention. Beaten almost daily, he lost 58 kilos after 11 months in prison Ofer and Negev prisons. In the West Bank, September 27, 2025. LAURENCE GEAI/MYOP FOR LE MONDE
It was 19 days after his arrest by the Israeli army in Tulkarem, in the north of the occupied West Bank, on February 23, 2024. Sami Al-Sa'i, a 47-year-old Palestinian journalist, had just been transferred from a military base to Megiddo prison. "The guards told me to undress and throw my clothes in a trash bin," recounted the father of six in front of reporters on Wednesday, January 14. "They asked, 'Are you with Hamas? Are you a journalist?' The beating started. They hit every part of my body," he said. "They took me to another room. They told me to kneel down. I thought they wanted to humiliate me. They beat me again."
At that moment, according to his account, the detainee was blindfolded. The guards held him down completely. "They tried to force something hard into my anus," he said. "I resisted, I tensed my muscles with all my strength. But it was too painful, they penetrated me deeply. The pain was terrible. (…) They did it again." The man heard his guards laugh and then smoke a cigarette. They then carried him into a shared cell. For several days, he cleaned the wound with toilet paper.
