'I promise you as soon as I leave here, even if I am in a wheelchair, I will return to the operating room', this is what Dr. Issam Abu Ajwa told the Israeli investigation officer, where he spent 200 days in detention, moving between Israeli prisons, and receiving the most horrific types of torture.
The story began at the Alm'madani Hospital in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, where Dr. Abu Ajwa had been working as a Consultant Surgeon Volunteer since the beginning of the war on Gaza, about ten months earlier.
On December 17th, Israeli occupation forces surrounded the hospital, launched intense airstrikes in its vicinity, then stormed it, arresting a number of doctors and staff, including Abu Ajwa.
Dr. Abu Ajwa recounted to the "Nawa" website how he and a group of young men, elderly people, and children were taken. The soldiers bound their hands with restraints and blindfolded them before taking them to a military base resembling "barracks."
He said, "The invesitagation lasted for 125 days, using inhumane methods. In the severe cold, they would pour water on our bodies, turn on air conditioners and fans, and in the peak of heat, they would place us in closed rooms with no air."
He added, "Every two hours, we would be transferred to a new investigator, and the main question was always: 'Where are the Israeli prisoners?'"
"On October 7th, the Israeli occupying state launched a war on the Gaza Strip following a military operation carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades, affiliated with Hamas, under the name 'Al-Aqsa Flood.' During this operation, 240 Israelis were captured, and 70 hostages were released as part of an agreement in November 2023 in exchange for 210 Palestinian prisoners.
Dr. Abu Ajwa sarcastically asks: 'How am I supposed to know where the prisoners are? Please tell me, I am a doctor. Just a doctor at a hospital affiliated with the Anglican Episcopal Church in Jerusalem.'
When one of the investigators learned that Issam was a surgeon, as we were told, he laughed and said: 'You will leave here as a patient, and you will need someone to treat you because you will leave here with your hands paralyzed.'
Dr. Abu Ajwa continues his testimony: 'I promised him that if I left without hands at all, I would return to the operating room.'
Dr. Abu Ajwa describes that each interrogator had their own special and different method of torturing and humiliating the Palestinian prisoners. The most difficult method was when they stripped the prisoner of their clothes, hung them on the wall with their hands and legs bound, and then began to beat them."
He continues: "The dirtiest torture methods were when they would bring a toilet brush and tell the prisoner they would clean their teeth with it. Indeed, they broke my front teeth with it."
In the Negev prison, Dr. Abu Ajwa lost 35 kilograms due to a lack of food. Breakfast consisted of a spoonful and a half of rice and a small piece of tomato or cucumber the size of a finger. Lunch was the same for six months of detention.
According to Abu Ajwa's testimony, inside the cell, soldiers would wake the prisoners at 6 a.m., take their bedding, and return it only at midnight. There were also no personal hygiene tools, leading to many skin diseases among the prisoners.
He says: "We would bathe once a week with just cold water, without soap or shampoo, and they didnot provide us with medical treatment. For example, I have diabetes and heart disease, and they only brought me medicine after a very long time."
Even water was available only for one hour a day. "Some prisoners suffered from dehydration due to the lack of water, especially in the extreme heat inside Negev prison, which is located in the desert south of Palestine."
One day, Abu Ajwa lost consciousness and lost feeling in his hands due to severe torture. When he woke up, he found the Israeli investigator and doctor laughing. They were very happy because I had lost feeling in my hands and said to me: "We are very happy that you will not be a surgeon again."
He says: "At that moment, I promised them that I would return to my work even before I met my family."
At the Shohada'a Al-Aqsa Hospital, where many doctors had either been displaced or forced to leave, Dr. Issam Abu Ajwa was received warmly. When he found a journalist, he stood and said to him while being filmed: "I send a message to that investigator; as I promised, I am here, and I will now go into the operating room. My health is good."
