TULKARM – Emerging in groups from a towering residential building amidst a vast agricultural field, men were seen, bearing unmistakable signs of beating and torture. They were a contingent of young individuals from Tulkarm Camp who had been allowed by the Israeli occupying forces to leave the building where they had been held for investigation for more than 48 hours following their homes’ raid and arrest during the extensive military operation conducted in the camps of the northwestern West Bank city of Tulkarm since dawn last Wednesday.
Haitham Ghanem, in his thirties, recounts that a force of Israeli soldiers stormed his house in the Tulkarm Camp, assaulted him brutally, handcuffed him, blindfolded him, and dragged him to a building in the neighboring Shweika suburb.
“They entered my home and questioned me about a resistance fighter, despite my denials of knowing him. They beat me severely and kept repeating the question. I told them we don’t know where these fighters are, yet they arrested me in front of my family and dragged me to their military vehicle. They stripped me of my winter clothes, then one of them handed me a red sweater and ordered me to wear it,” says Ghanem.
Hundreds of camp residents were detained by the Israeli forces in a residential building after evacuating its inhabitants and turning it into a detention and interrogation center.
Haitham describes the harsh interrogation hours and the brutal treatment by Israeli soldiers, saying, “When they finally let me go, about 300 people were still detained in the building. They interrogated everyone extensively. The main question was about the young resistance and any information that could lead them to them. We endured long hours of insults and verbal abuse. They cursed our mothers with very vulgar language and kicked us. I was punched in the face multiple times.”
According to estimations by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, around 500 individuals were arrested from within Tulkarm Camp and transferred to the field interrogation point in Shweika suburb, Jenin city.
The club stated in a report that the Israeli forces had held the camp’s residents for extended hours under degrading conditions that violate human dignity. They conditioned the released individuals not to return to the camp until Friday morning. Eyewitnesses confirm that interrogation operations are ongoing in residents’ homes, which continue to be raided by Israeli soldiers.
Beatings and Insults
Mahmoud Musleh, 36, reports that soldiers raided his home around ten o’clock on Wednesday night, terrorizing his children, collecting the men’s IDs, and upon learning of his employment within the Palestinian security forces, they asked about his weapon. Musleh told them he had left it at his workplace.
Musleh, blindfolded along with his brothers, was taken to the field interrogation point at the residential building. There, the soldiers separated the young men by age, placing those under 35 in one apartment and those over 35 in another.
He confirms that Israeli forces are particularly harsh in interrogating younger men, subjecting them to brutal beatings, humiliation, and extended detention periods.
Ambulances provided first aid to those released from beatings and mistreatment in the field, while one young man needed paramedic transport after suffering severe neck and back rib damage from the beatings inflicted by soldiers.
Another young man, with a large wound on his forehead, said an Israeli soldier kept hitting his head with a metal door right before his arrest from his home in the camp.
Videos captured the arrest of a large number of young men on one of the camp’s streets and their blindfolded transfer to the field interrogation point.
Enticement Tactics
Abu Ahmad, one of those released, reported that the Israeli forces tried to use enticement by offering employment opportunities and improved living conditions to young men between 13 and 20 years old. “Through interrogations, they tried to convince those under 20 to provide labor permits, facilitate entry into the 1948 territories for work, and offer assistance if they cooperated with the occupiers and provided information about the resistance fighters.”
“For those older than 20, the fate was brutal beatings and significant insults. Soldiers attacked us with rifle butts and kicks; sometimes, soldiers spat on the detainees’ faces. Before our release, soldiers sprayed us with tear gas, then informed us that we could not return to the camp until the occupying forces had withdrawn from it,” added Abu Ahmad.
He described the long hours of detention as challenging, with all detainees blindfolded for an extended period, their hands bound, denied access to water or bathroom facilities, and a large number of young men held for nearly 48 hours before release under the condition not to return to their homes in Tulkarm Camp until Friday morning.
The investigation focused on the whereabouts and movements of resistance fighters and locations where explosives were planted in the streets.
Large Israeli military forces with military bulldozers had stormed Tulkarm Camp on Wednesday morning in a massive two-day military operation. An Israeli drone killed four Palestinians deep within the camp, and Israeli snipers shot another young man, preventing ambulances from reaching him. After confirming his death, soldiers tied him with a rope and desecrated his body.
Israeli bulldozers ravaged the camp’s streets, causing extensive damage to the infrastructure, buildings, and homes, before announcing their withdrawal early Friday morning.
