‘There’s a prison inside me’: Vulnerable Palestinian bodybuilder harms Israel

Emaciated, unable to move without assistance, his right arm jerking clumsily in front of him and his face symbolizing his lack of certainty, Muazzaz Abayet staggers out of an Israeli prison.

When Israeli forces arrested him last year, Abayat was a heavyset, self-confident man. A novice bodybuilder, he weighed 109 kg, all muscles. Later, after spending nine months in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian has lost more than half his body weight.

This is another grim, horrific story from Israel’s conflict in Gaza.

But, Muazzaz Abayat never went to Gaza. He was born and raised in the West Depot town of Bethlehem, where he worked as a butcher until Israeli forces attacked his home at 2.30 am on 26 October.

The charges against Abayat were denied while he was held in Israeli prisons for almost nine months. He was placed under administrative detention, which allows a prisoner to be detained without charge at the discretion of the local military commander.

The Israel-based human rights task force HaMoked reports that more than 3,500 of the 9,000 Palestinians recently held in Israeli prisons are held in administrative detention. Many people like Muazzaz Abayat are from West Depot. This number has increased rapidly since the Hamas-led attack on October 7.

Abayat told Heart East Perspective that while in prison, he was beaten, abused, tortured, starved, and deprived of water. He said that his case was not good. Each alternative Palestinian prisoner faces corresponding abuses.

Pictures of Muazzaz Abayat staggering out of prison, again crouched, with his hands bruised and bent, have been going viral on Arab social media channels for a long time.

On the other hand, there was little or no interest in the Western media. Heart East Perceptible was the first Western media organization to interview the 39-year-old following his discharge.

in bethlehem again

We found him in a medical institution in his native Bethlehem, where he is making a long progress in treatment. His brother, Ahmed, once accompanied him.

There was no flesh on his body, only skin and bones. Veins and muscles came out from his neck. The shock of the last 9 months was clearly visible on his face.

Abayat was crushed so often in prison, so brutally, and by so many people, that he now sees everyone as a potential ultimatum. His first phrases to us were: “I have not been beaten for three days since I came out of jail. I was told that I would not be beaten in this hospital.”

Speaking slowly but fluently, he warned us that he would not remember his gift before Israeli soldiers arrested him: “I can’t get the prison out of my head and can’t remember. I am still living in jail. There is a prison inside me.

Doctors told us they are still trying to understand his condition.

Time Prison is too bright for him, his public presence is dim. His brother told us that Abayat does not recognize his father, even though he visits him every day.

‘Ever since I was released from jail, I have not had any kind of problem for the last three days. I was told that I would not be beaten in this hospital.

, Muazzaz Abayat, former Palestinian prisoner

His wife, Noor, and mother, Mona, both collapse in the field after seeing their heartbroken husband and son stagger out of the prison.

Abayat said he was in bed with his four children (Nour was pregnant with her fifth child) when Israeli forces entered and ransacked his home.

“I asked why. He said I am a murderer. I asked: ‘Who did I kill?’ You entered the house of a peaceful man with his wife and children and accused him of being a murderer.

Abayat instructed MEE that he would never leave what happened later. Pointing his finger to his temple he said: “I remember everything. It’s all in my mind.”

The fighters took him to an army testing center in the Israeli settlement of Gush Etzion. There, they bound his palms with iron chains, blindfolded him, and stripped him of his clothes.

“They beat me when I was naked. They hit my left eye with an iron rod. I fell on the floor and became unconscious until they threw cold water on me,” he said.

Please note that in a matter of weeks, the army demoted Abayat from bottom to bottom, subjecting him to additional beatings at every station. As far as he could tell, there was a negative serious reason for his assault. This was just revenge for October 7 taken from all Palestinians.

One future is particularly imprinted in his thoughts: “December 4th was the day they broke my body, a big crack.”

“They made me sit on a small chair and closed my eyes. My legs and hands were chained behind my back. A group of men attacked me and beat me badly.

Abayat said he was once interviewed by an official from Shin Weger, Israel’s internal intelligence provider, who asked him: “Are you with us or with them?”

He recalls replying: “I’m not with anyone. I am a Palestinian. You took away a peaceful man from his home. I challenge all of Israel: Did I have any weapons? Did they arrest me while I was shooting them? I was sleeping with my young children between my children and my pregnant wife.

Later, when interrogated, the fighting started again. “They put me in a bag. They broke my legs,” Abayat said, pulling back the mattress to repair the stains.

He remembers being put into a van shouting “poison gas” until he became unconscious.

Negev prison

The worst time was to return once. He said, “What I have described so far was a drop in the ocean compared to the prison of the Negev.”

In the depth of the cold season, on December 7, Abayat says he was once taken to a prison in the notorious Barren Area, about 10 km east of Israel’s border with Egypt.

“As soon as you get there, they take off your clothes. They only allow you a t-shirt and trousers. There are no undergarments. The weather there is cold. It is especially cold at night,” Abayat said.

Throughout the future, a prison mobile of 10 people will provide one liter water bottle to a bundle of men. There was one meal a day, and the food was so disgusting that prisoners were constantly afraid to eat it for fear of becoming unwell.

Speaking to MEE in April, Yosef Sarur, a Palestinian prisoner in the Negev, described similar conditions. Sorour said they were attacked four times and fed once a day “so we don’t die”.

The prisoners were kept in such close proximity that an epidemic of scabies once broke out. The simplest thing Abayat had to do during his nearly six months in prison was take a bath.

He expressed particular concern about the guards who wore inexperienced uniforms and “pushed us around like animals” and viewed the prisoners as “sons of pigs”. Abayat said that during some beatings, Israeli guards wore protective equipment to attack prisoners in their private parts.

‘I’m asking you to look at the conditions in Palestinian prisons. The country they call Israel is killing and torturing prisoners’

, Muazzaz Abayat, former Palestinian prisoner

He remembers that one prisoner, Abu Asab, was left to die in a mobile similar to his own.

“They beat him to death and left him to die.”

Like other Palestinians who were detained there, Abayat was held next to the Negev prison near the notorious US facilities Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were tortured and abused.

During this period, the Fathers of Bethlehem were removed from the field. He had negative relations with his own people, who learned of his situation from acquitted prisoners. Denny Lawyers represented him.

According to Abdullah al-Zaghari, chairman of the Palestinian Prisoner League, access to Israeli prisons, including the Red Pass, for human rights organizations is exclusive, meaning there is “no information about the conditions of prisoners”.

He instructed the MEE: “There are hundreds of prisoners in the same situation as Muazzaz.” Heart East Perceptible has written to the Israeli prison provider asking it to respond to the allegations made in this article.

‘Similar abuse and torture’

Abayat insists that there was nothing out of the ordinary about his treatment. “Every prisoner arrested after October 7 faced similar ill-treatment and torture. I challenge the international press to find a prisoner who was not tortured like me,” he said.

Before leaving his hospital bedside, we asked Abayat if he had any message for the region.

His response shocked us: “We don’t want you to drive us away from the profession. We would like you to at least help our people.

“I am asking you to look at the conditions in Palestinian prisons. The country they call Israel is killing and torturing prisoners. Terrible discoveries remain to be made.”

With a frightened look as he spoke, he expressed disbelief that “peaceful people without power can be starved, tortured and killed” in the 21st century without any policy, criminal representation or global outrage.

Abayat’s account of his 9 nightmare months in Israeli custody is entirely consistent with the alternative stories coming out of West Depot and Gaza. There are plenty of alternative photos of emaciated Palestinians staggering out of Israeli prisons, shadows of their former selves.

Abayat’s imprisonment is not a sovereign story. Their grief is shared by the many, if not thousands, of forgotten Palestinian prisoners who still languish in Israeli prisons.