Palestinians Face Beatings and Abuse in Israeli Interrogations at Rafah Crossing

Palestinians returning to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing report systematic harassment, beatings, torture, and being told to leave Gaza with their families by Israeli border agents. Returnees who spoke to Mondoweiss described how Israeli authorities subjected them to hours of intensive interrogation, during which they attempted to recruit some travelers as informants.

As the Rafah crossing partially resumed operations in late January after having been closed by Israel in May 2024, increasing numbers of Palestinians who had left for Egypt during the war have begun returning to the Strip. Palestinians have described the harrowing treatment they experienced at the crossing. Additional interviews with returnees upon arrival reveal that travelers received two distinct messages from the authorities with whom they interacted during the journey.

The first appeared to come from the Egyptian side, who urged travelers to remain in Gaza and reject all offers of emigration. The second seemed to have been planted by the Israelis, particularly through interrogation rooms. The message was nearly identical for every person crossing through Rafah:

Gaza now belongs to Israel, and Palestinians will inevitably be forced out of the Strip — “even if it takes twenty years,” according to statements attributed to Israeli interrogators.

Every Palestinian making the journey must undergo mandatory questioning, in which Israeli officers alternate between aggressive intimidation tactics and feigned concern and helpfulness. Almost all travelers were detained for more than two hours, and sometimes up to the whole day. In all cases, their hands were bound, and their eyes were blindfolded during the entire interrogation. Israeli officers proposed what they phrased as “generous offers” to the travelers to assist them and their families in leaving Gaza permanently. Others were offered to work for the Israeli army by providing it with information from within Gaza upon their return.

Maha Abu Qamar, who returned to Gaza with her two children, ages 11 and 13, described the Egyptian side as routine: bags were searched, passports stamped, and travelers were allowed to pass through toward Gaza without incident. When they entered Gaza to hand in their passports, they were received by armed members of the infamous Israel-backed militia formerly led by the late Yasser Abu Shabab, who was reportedly killed by one of his men in December of last year. “Abu Shabab’s group received us and searched us. They did not abuse us or cross any lines,” Abu Qamar told Mondoweiss. “They took our passports to hand them to the Israelis, along with our mobile phones, while our belongings remained outside. Then they led us into a makeshift room. It was wrapped in plastic sheeting from the side and was open at the top.”

The crossing on the Palestinian side is no longer a place fit for human use, travelers say. They walk through sandy dirt paths with fences on either side, describing the Israeli-controlled area as a flattened “desert.” As of April of last year, Israel systematically razed the southern Rafah governorate.

Abu Qamar says that after waiting briefly, an Israeli female soldier arrived and grabbed her by the hand, ordering her to face the wall. She then bound her hands and placed a blindfold over her eyes. She was led through what she described as several winding corridors until they reached the interrogation room. She sat in the room for ten minutes before being taken out of it, only to be called back in and led through the same process. The entire time, she was handcuffed and blindfolded.

Offers of Collaboration

Interviews conducted by Mondoweiss show little difference from one interrogation to another. The questions are the same, the methods nearly identical. Returnees consistently say that the message conveyed by interrogators was uniform: Gaza will not be rebuilt, it will remain destroyed for 20 or 30 years, and Israel will ultimately take it over and expel all Palestinians from the Strip.

No travelers are able to describe the interrogation rooms, as they remained blindfolded the entire time. One returnee, Sabah al-Rakab, 41, tried to raise her head when she was being questioned, but when she did so, an interrogator immediately hit her head with his hand, ordering her to keep it down.

Abu Qamar says the first question she was asked was what she was doing on October 7. “I told him I was awake, preparing my children for school, when we were surprised by what happened,” she said. He asked where her husband was at the time. She replied that he was at home, resting after his night shift, before leaving for his daytime job.

The interrogator then asked about a relative and whether he worked for Hamas, which she denied. He pressed her, accusing her of lying, but she insisted she was telling the truth. He then asked about her nephew, repeating the same question. He was a nurse, she said, but she didn’t know exactly where he worked, except that he had trained at al-Nasr Eye Hospital. The interrogator asked the same questions about her son, Tamer. He was a nurse training at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The interrogator then asked about another relative, Alaa Abu Qamar, and his relationship to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. She said they were colleagues who worked together.

The interrogation lasted more than an hour and a half. Questions were not asked consecutively; instead, a question would be posed, followed by 10 minutes of repeating the same question to elicit more answers. When the interrogation ended, she was handed over to the Red Crescent, taken to a bus, and then transported into Gaza.

The interrogators offered returnees to expedite their emmigration from Gaza alongside their families. Among the questions posed was why had Qamar returned in the first place. “If we secure you a life, a home, and a salary outside Gaza, would you leave?”

Abu Qamar said she answered in the affirmative. “If you provide me with a dignified life — a home and a salary for my children for life, and for my husband — I would leave,” she said.

In other cases, interrogators made different offers to returnees, including attempting to recruit them as informants. “They asked me to tell them what happens around me, what I see, and to do what they ask,” Sabah al-Rakab says.

“All of the questions revolved around why we wanted to return to Gaza. He told me Gaza has no life, that it’s completely destroyed and there’s nothing worth returning to. ‘Why do you want to go back?’ he’d say. And I would tell him: ‘I want to go to my family, to see my children and grandchildren. I want to see my family again.’” The interrogator then interjected to say that her husband was not in Gaza, but Oman. “He said, ‘I will send you to your husband in Oman. I will give you what you need and help reunite you with your children there. I will bring them and help them travel to Oman—on the condition that you never return to Gaza and that you turn back immediately.’”

Sabah refused, saying Gaza is her homeland. She added that she had lived in Egypt for more than a year and never felt comfortable or safe, and that she would only feel that way in Gaza.

Testimony of Beatings, Torture, and Degrading Treatment

Travelers also share how interrogations used insults, foul language, and verbal and physical abuse, banging on the table over and over and calling them liars.

Over the course of an hour and 40 minutes, Sabah al-Rakab was subjected to “intense pressure” by two interrogators she could neither see nor identify. During the interrogation, the two played contrasting roles: one acted kindly, promising help, family reunification, housing, a salary, and a suitable life outside Gaza if she agreed to leave and never return; the other slammed the table, shouted, accused her of lying, and hurled insults she refused to repeat due to their nature.

When al-Rakab denied their offer to leave Gaza and never come back, the two interrogators went back to hurling insults. She says she had been wearing a woolen shawl to protect herself from the cold, but that they took it from her. As she grew cold and began to cry, she told them she was sick and needed warmth. Instead of returning the shawl, they sprayed water on her back.

Another traveler, Taghreed Marouf, says that from 3 a.m. to 9 a.m., she was made to sit on a steel chair, hands cuffed and eyes blindfolded. Her feet were tied to the chair. They were asking about her husband, who serves as a policeman in the Hamas-run civilian branch of government in Gaza.

“They did not believe that he was a policeman. They kept insisting that he is a member of the Qassam Brigades,” she says. “I kept telling the interrogator that he isn’t affiliated with al-Qassam, and that he is only working as a civilian policeman to feed his family and has nothing to do with any military activity.”

Marouf says the interrogator then hit her with the butt of his rifle.

During the interrogation, they asked Marouf to provide information about another individual, but she denied any knowledge of the details they sought. After that, she says, they stripped her of her winter jacket and left her to sit in the cold for a few more hours.

“The interrogators asked me where I had surgery. I told him on my hip. He told me to turn my body so he can see. When I did, and he saw where they had operated on me, he hit me there with his rifle. He kept kicking me in the same spot. I fell down and lost consciousness. When I next opened my eyes, I was in a hospital in Gaza.”

“Homeland Is Like the Soul“

Another traveler, Routana al-Rakab, was offered the chance to reunite with her family and children at the border before they all left together. She refused. They then offered to provide her with a place to live away from the rubble. She refused again, insisting that all she wanted was to return to Gaza. At that moment, the officer’s tone shifted, his “generosity” turning into rage. He began slamming his hands on the table, raising his voice, and threatening to deprive her of her children, saying she would never see them again.

“He said that ‘Gaza is ours — if not today, then in twenty years, in thirty years. We own Gaza now. Not a single Palestinian will remain. You will all leave, and it will belong to us,’” al-Rakab recounts.

Most travelers interviewed by Mondoweiss said they would not accept the Israeli offer to be relocated. Most of them cited their need to be with family. “My family, my land, my home, my memories — everything I know and love can only be found in Gaza,” al-Rakab says. “I will never choose to leave without returning. It’s my homeland. Homeland is like the soul, it’s irreplaceable.”

“I lived in an occupation-free country,” she continues. “It’s really amazing to breathe freedom, but if it’s not in our homeland, then it’s not our freedom.”

Al-Rakab says that after over a year spent in Egypt, never felt safe or happy, despite not wanting for anything. “Exile is a burden, and home is a blessing,” she explains. “I choose Gaza every time.”