The Electronic Intifada 3 April 2025
After 14 months in Israeli prison, journalist Ahmad Shaqoura was released this past February.
Journalist Ahmad Shaqoura said he lost around 138 pounds while being detained in Israeli prisons for about 14 months.
To the shock of his family, other friends and me, Shaqoura, who weighed 319 pounds before he was arrested on 8 December 2023, returned to the al-Rimal neighborhood this past February with his bones almost sticking out of his body after receiving “not enough food to feed a cat” in prison.
I have known Shaqoura, who is 37 years old, for four years. Our friendship developed while he was a trainer for a course I took on digital media in Gaza City in 2021. He works for the Palestine Today news agency and is married with five children.
He is also a skilled cook and enjoys swimming and playing electronic strategy games, notably PES electronic football.
I met up with Shaqoura in the al-Rimal neighborhood in March. It was noon and we sat outside under the sunshine that he had missed seeing during his 14-month detention. He was one of 369 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in a February exchange for three Israeli prisoners.
We found no place to sit and talk except on the rubble of the destroyed houses around us.
Initial arrest
Shaqoura told me he had been listening to the news of the Israeli military invasion of Gaza City on the radio in his home when soldiers arrived and demanded via loudspeaker that the residents leave their homes and surrender.
Shaqoura said the men were told to strip down to their underwear.
“The soldiers tied me with three strong plastic handcuffs and blindfolded me so that I could not see anything,” he said, pointing to the wounds still visible on his hands.
“These handcuffs caused severe harm to my hands. They crushed my skin and flesh and reached the bone.”
The Israeli soldiers took Shaqoura and a group of his male neighbors by bus northward, to the Israeli military base in Zikim. “For 18 hours straight, we were not allowed to drink water or relieve ourselves, and despite being very cold, we were not allowed to wear any clothes,” he recalled.
The Israeli army then transferred Shaqoura to the notorious Sde Teiman military camp.
“I was still blindfolded and handcuffed, and they made me sit on gravel with rough edges. It caused me injuries in my leg. I remained like that for five days in a row.”
Away from the cameras, brutal beatings
Shaqoura was then transferred to the al-Jalame prison in central Israel for 140 days, which he described as the most brutal period of his imprisonment.
“For five continuous hours on the road to al-Jalame, the soldiers beat me severely with iron rods. I did not know that there were other detainees with me until I heard their screams while they were being beaten like me,” Shaqoura said, mentioning that he was blindfolded the whole time.
“When I arrived at al-Jalame, I was placed in an area far from the surveillance cameras spread throughout the prison. Then the soldiers started beating me again all over my body,” he said.
The pain was so severe that he thought a few of his bones had been broken, but he said he did not receive any medical treatment.
Shaqoura said he was unable to walk for two months because of the attack. “I couldn’t even move to go to the bathroom, so I would refrain from eating so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom,” he recalled.
Those personal difficulties were complicated by the conditions of the prison and overall day-to-day treatment.
“We were not allowed to be exposed to the sun, and we did not know the time,” Shaqoura said. “The cells were painted black to affect the morale of the detainees. There was no fresh air and no contact with the outside world, such as family or lawyers.”
He said he was subjected to interrogation sessions day and night, and in order to pressure him and break his resolve, he was “placed for a month in solitary confinement in a cell measuring one meter long and half a meter wide.”
Shaqoura was then transferred to Ofer prison near Ramallah in the West Bank, where he was subjected to similar beatings and deprivation.
He said food “provided for three days in prison was half the amount of food for anyone outside the prison … and was provided only so that we would not die of hunger.”
“We slept on iron beds without any bedding or blankets in the cold of winter. Soldiers would storm the rooms and wake us up at least three times every night, with the aim of making our sleep hellish and affecting our morale.”
My family “didn’t recognize me”
Shaqoura said he sometimes felt hopeless because he “had not heard anything” about his wife and children in Gaza, and he assumed they were being subjected to the Israeli bombings.
The interaction with other prisoners helped Shaqoura keep his spirits up.
“I met prisoners who had spent many years here. They supported me psychologically and gave me hope that I would eventually be released from detention and that I would meet my wife and children again,” he said.
“This support gave me great strength to endure in prison.”
He said he was overjoyed when an Israeli officer told him on 19 January 2025 that a ceasefire had been reached between Hamas and Israel and that he would be released under a prisoner exchange deal.
When he was released on 15 February, he said he did not know whether his wife and children were still alive.
“When the bus arrived in Gaza, I saw my wife and children waiting for me. When they saw me, they didn’t recognize me at first because I had lost so much weight that I no longer looked like they remembered.”
He said, “My children looked at me, unsure if I was their father or not. But their doubts faded when I smiled at them and rushed to embrace them.”
“At that time, I felt great joy and thanked God a lot.”
Shaqoura is now receiving medical and psychological care at an outpatient government program at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
He has returned to work as a journalist and also hopes to open a restaurant in Gaza one day.
Abdullah Younis is a journalist in the Gaza Strip.
