‘They were laughing’: Israel’s use of rape and sexual abuse in prisons

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault that some readers may find disturbing. Muhammad al-Bakri specifically remembers the date of his rape. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list It was April 10, 2024, during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The Gaza civil servant had been beaten, tortured, bound and forced to soil himself since his arrest by Israeli soldiers a month earlier. The soldiers and their guard dogs surrounded him that day. “There were six soldiers on the right and six on the left,” he recalled. “They would ask your name. If you said ‘Muhammad’, they would say, ‘No, say your name is b****.’” Al-Bakri said he was held with seven other prisoners. They were all stripped, blindfolded and handcuffed. “We were raped after being stripped of our clothes,” he said. “We were shouting, ‘Oh Lord, oh God’, but they were just laughing and filming us.” Al-Bakri then echoed what several rights agencies have also reported – that guards also used dogs during the sexual abuse of prisoners. “The dogs were following commands from the officers to [attack] us,” he said. “There was no mercy. We stayed in that state of sexual abuse and beatings for about 20 minutes to half an hour. …