‘Israeli soldiers dragged me out of my West Bank home then beat and spat on me in nightmare six-hour ordeal’

Detailed summary

Palestinians in the southern region of Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, have faced growing settler attacks and arbitrary arrests in recent years. Mohammed Hesham tells Alex Croft that he feared for his life while being abused by soldiers

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A Palestinian journalist has said he was beaten, blindfolded and handcuffed with zip ties after being taken from his village by a group of Israeli soldiers in a horrific six hour ordeal - before being released without charge.

Mohammad Hesham, 23, was seized from his village of at-Tuwani and ordered onto his knees before being driven to Susya military base in Masafer Yatta, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.

Over a six-hour period, Mr Hesham told The Independent he was spat on, abused, and told he would die in custody. He says his treatment worsened after the troops took his phone and discovered he was a journalist and activist.

“It was terrifying,” he says ten days on from the incident. “It was crazy. It was really tough for me, especially after they knew that I was a journalist. That was a nightmare.”

The Israeli military said Hesham was arrested “after approaching an Israeli community in the southern Hebron Hills in a suspicious manner”. It said he was “held for several hours and subsequently released”, adding: “IDF soldiers are authorized to detain suspects for six hours.”

But Mr Hesham says he was seized while at home with his family. Security footage seen and published by The Independent, shows no evidence of the military’s version of events. Instead, the troops are seen approaching Mr Hesham’s village and summoning him out before detaining him.

It is the latest example of incidents across the occupied territories in which Palestinians are arbitrarily detained for hours by Israeli forces without being formally charged or accused of any crime.

According to Israeli human rights group B’tselem, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 3,198 Palestinians, including 94 children, in ‘administrative detention’ - the arrest and imprisonment of individuals without a formal criminal charge, trial or conviction - as of June 2026.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Independent. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.