Moazaz Obaiat and Tamer Ossama Salem al-Hafy are two different Palestinian detainees who have just been released by Israeli authorities in the last few days.
While Moazaz is from Bethlehem and Tamer from Gaza - both recounted similarly awful stories of their time in Israeli detention. Moazaz, who was once a bodybuilder with a physique to match, was released after nine months of detention. He appeared emaciated and bearing signs of torture, along with deteriorated physical and mental health.
He was taken immediately to a hospital upon his release. Moazaz said of his ordeal that — among other things — Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's hardline and far-right national security minister, danced on his body during one of his beatings, thinking that Moazaz was dead.
He also alleged that Israeli prison authorities put him in a mortuary after a severe beating, also believing him to have been dead. Moazaz had been arrested in October when soldiers from Israel's Yamam Unit stormed his home and began severely beating him. He was then taken to the Etzion detention centre.
He was held under administrative order, without charge or trial. Meanwhile, Tamer was shot below the knee by Israeli forces as he helped the injured onto stretchers after an Israeli airstrike last November. A paramedic at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, Tamer was held for 35 days. Soldiers accused him of being a "terrorist" and took him to a detention facility where he was blindfolded.
While in detention, he was cuffed by his arms and legs to a bed inside a tent, and he had no idea where he was. Tamer said he was blindfolded except during interrogations and received only "liquid vitamins" through a straw every three or four days as nourishment. He added that he was beaten and humiliated and did not receive medical care while in detention, and believes his job as a paramedic made him a target.
