Nihal al-Ghandur Salah

A 40-year-old mother of four, Nihal recounted how she was arrested by soldiers at the Netzarim checkpoint on 22 Nov. 2023 and abused while held for more than three weeks:

I lived with my husband and our children, Sama, 11, Karim, 9, Zeinab, 7, and Salma, 4, in my family’s building in Mashru’ Beit Lahiya north of Gaza City, close to the market. I worked at a school as a math teacher and my husband was unemployed.

When the war first started, we stayed at home. But on 18 November 2023, a shell fell on our building and we all left: me, my husband and kids, my parents, my sisters Samar and Nada, and my brothers Shadi, Muhammad and Mahmoud with their families – 25 people altogether. At first we went to Jabalya Refugee Camp. I stayed with my husband and kids and a few other family members with the al-Madhun family for two days, and then for another two days at the home of relatives from the Abu Diyah family.

On 22 November 2023, I left the Abu Diyahs’ home with the kids, my sister Samar, Shadi’s wife, their kids and her aunt, Tammam Abu Diyah. We headed south, until we reached the checkpoint the army set up in the Netzarim area. The soldiers ordered us to sit on the ground. I sat down on the sand with Shadi’s girls, Rose, Mai and Sarah. Then they called out to Samar and told her to go behind a fence, and then they told me to go there, too. I was told to take my clothes off, and I stayed in my underwear. Then they let me get dressed again, and I sat down next to Samar. They covered our eyes. Samar asked who was sitting next to her, and I said it was me. Two hours later, I called out to her again, and she didn’t answer. I didn’t know where she was.

In the evening, they took me and about 15 other women they arrested to another place. They told us we were in an Israeli military detention facility. Every time I moved, I got hit on the head. Every time I heard soldiers’ voices, I was afraid I’d get hit again. They kept cocking their weapons to scare us. Every time I heard that, I recited the “shahadatein” because I was sure they were going to shoot me. Our hands were tied in zip ties the whole time.

People in civilian clothes, I think Shin Bet agenst, interrogated me four or five times. Every time, the zip ties were replaced with metal handcuffs for the duration of the interrogation. They asked me about the hostages and the tunnels, where they were, about security cameras. One of the interrogators kept shouting at me and swearing at me.

They didn’t let us sleep and forced us to stand, in the cold, in rooms with tin walls. They humiliated us all the time. Sometimes, they put the food outside the room so we couldn’t reach it, and then animals came and ate it. They shouted and swore at us all day long. The toilets were disgusting, and I felt the water they were giving us wasn’t fit for drinking.

On Wednesday, 29 November, they told us: “Yalla, off to Gaza.” They blindfolded us and took us to a prison. They told us it was Damun Prison. They interrogated us there too, asking the same questions. I met female prisoners from the West Bank there, and also four detainees from Gaza who were arrested with us and brought there two days earlier. There were female soldiers or prison guards there who abused us, physically and mentally. They kicked us, pulled our hair, humiliated us and shouted at us.

They kept me there for almost two weeks, until Monday, 11 December 2023. Then they called me and another detainee and told us we were being released. They covered our eyes, tied our hands and drove us for three hours to the detention facility I was in at first. I was interrogated there again, and badly beaten. They humiliated me and pulled my hair. I was in despair. I lost all hope they’d let me go.

On Thursday, 14 December 2023, in the evening, they called me and four other women from Gaza and made us stand outside in the cold and rain, far away from each other, for five hours. When we asked them why they were keeping us there, the soldiers shouted and swore at us.

After midnight, they blindfolded and handcuffed us and put us on a bus that drove us to the Kerem Shalom crossing. At the crossing, we met workers who were arrested in Israel and being taken back into Gaza, and they told us where we were. It was only then that we realized we were being released.

I came back physically and mentally exhausted. I could barely walk, and was in a really bad state psychologically after everything I’d been through in prison. When I entered the Gaza Strip, I was shocked by what I saw, all the displaced persons and the condition they were in. I called my family and when I reached them, I found out they were all living in some storage space, practically on top of each other – it was so crowded. There’s barely any food and water. My children were in really bad shape. They’d been through horrible things, and I wasn’t there with them. They got the flu and had from diarrhea and intestinal infections. They didn’t even have a change of clothes. I went looking for clothes to buy for them, but couldn’t find any. I don’t have any clothes either, and I’m still wearing the sweatpants they gave me in prison. My husband and I found a building under construction and moved into an apartment there, which has no windows yet. We covered the openings with plastic sheeting.

I can’t get over what happened to me. The shame of being seen almost naked and the state my children are in.

* Testimony collected by B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 31 December 2023

Nihal’s sister, Samar al-Ghandur, 34, related how Nihal disappeared at the Netzarim checkpoint and no one knew her whereabouts until she was released

I live in Mashru’ Beit Lahaya with my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.

When the war first started, we stayed home. We heard gunfire constantly and bombings that lasted a long time, all around our area. We almost ran out of food and water and the situation became unbearable, but there was no safe way to evacuate. At one point, a shell landed on our house and on neighboring houses and damaged the roof, the walls and the furniture, so we had to leave. I don’t remember the date. We went to some relatives’ house in Jabalya R.C., but we only stayed there for two days because it was very crowded. There was no water and a lot of bombing there, too. So we left and went to al-Yaman a-Sa’id Hospital, still in Jabalya R.C.

We stayed there for a week. On Wednesday, 22 November 2023, we managed to find a car to take us from Jabalya to Kuwait Square in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. Everyone walks from there to the Netzarim checkpoint, and that’s what we did. When we got to the checkpoint, there were a lot of Israeli tanks and snipers. We walked on without looking around us. When I crossed through the electronic gate the army put up there, they called me over the loudspeakers: “Come here.” I went over to them and sat down on the ground as I was told. Tanks drove past me and the air filled with dust, which got in my eyes and everywhere in my body. About 50 people were sitting next to me, men and women, old and young. The soldiers ordered me to turn to face them, and then they blindfolded me and tied my hands with zip ties. They asked me about relatives of mine and about Hamas, about the location of tunnels and my connection with a commander in Hamas known as Abu Anas, whose last name is also al-Ghandur. I told them he wasn’t a relative of mine. The interrogation lasted 15 minutes, and then they took me a short distance on foot, still blindfolded and handcuffed, and made me sit somewhere else, where I was detained for about two hours. I heard my sister Nihal’s voice there, but when they finally let me go, I didn’t see her there. I went towards the road but couldn’t find her.

I kept walking towards a-Nuseirat R.C., about five kilometers away, where I met up with the rest of the family. We waited for Nihal for about two hours, and when she didn’t come, we got into a car and drove towards Rafah. Some of my brothers were there already. My sister Nihal’s children, Sama, 11, Karim, 9, Zeinab, 7, and Salma, 4, were with us, as well as Muna, the wife of my brother who was already in Rafah, and their children, Sarah, 20, Mai, 18, Rose, 15, Lin, 13, Muhammad, 10 and Muhannad, 8.

Now we’re all in Rafah and have heard nothing from my sister Nihal since that day. We looked for her and asked about her, but couldn’t get any information. We’re worried and are afraid for her life. We gathered she was detained and hasn’t been released. Many people were arrested at the Netzarim checkpoint, and there is no information about them.

* Testimony collected B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 24 November 2023

Rose Shadi al-Ghandur, 15, also spoke about her aunt Nihal’s disappearance:

When we got to the military checkpoint in Netzarim, I went through the electronic gate with my two sisters, Sarah and Mai, and my two aunts, Samar and Nihal. Then we sat on the ground, in the sun, with about 50 other people, women and children.

The soldiers called us one by one and we had to state our name and the ID number. They let some of the people go and told them to head south. They ordered my aunt Samar and then also my aunt Nihal to go towards a green flag a few meters away from us, where they were interrogating people. The two of them were blindfolded and I could hear yelling coming from their direction. We stayed there until the soldiers called me and my sisters and ordered us to go south. We started walking and couldn’t stop because there were tanks there and we were scared. Two hours later, we met up with Aunt Samar, who said Nihal was still in interrogation.

We walked for more than five kilometers to Wadi Gaza, near a-Nuseirat R.C., and waited for Nihal there, but she didn’t come. In the end, we got in a car that drove us to Rafah. We arrived completely exhausted. We could barely stand on our feet.

We still don’t know what happened to my aunt Nihal. We asked about her everywhere, in hospitals and at the Red Cross, but no one knows where she is.

* Testimony collected by B’Tselem field researcher Muhammad Sabah on 30 November 2023