As-salamu alaykum - Freed after nearly two years, he came home to find 14 relatives killed
As-salamu alaykum. When Ibrahim Abo Zbeida, 42, was released from an Israeli detention this week after almost two years, he was hoping to see his family in Gaza. Instead he found a life that no longer existed.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un - 14 members of his family, including his mother and siblings, had been killed by strikes while he was jailed. He had no idea. “I got out to find myself with no mother, no siblings. I lost them all,” he said, holding back tears. “They told me I’d lose everything – and they fulfilled their promise.”
Ibrahim was arrested in southern Gaza while trying to escape heavy bombardment in his neighborhood. He was taken to Sde Teiman, a military base in the Negev used as a detention centre, which former detainees, whistleblowers, human rights groups and UN experts have flagged for extreme abuse.
He called it a “graveyard, a slaughterhouse.” Ibrahim described 20 months of torture, humiliation and psychological torment: being forced to kneel for 18 hours straight, getting only a few spoonfuls of food a day, and constant mistreatment. He is a cancer patient and says he was denied medical care the whole time. “They even fought me with my illness,” he said. “I reached death.”
He was among hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released under a ceasefire last week - part of a 20-point plan put forward by US President Donald Trump that included exchanges of hostages and Palestinian detainees. Yet even the release came with cruelty: minutes before boarding the bus to leave, he says, they sent him a message: ‘Tell your family that the war between us isn’t over yet. We will kill them all.’
Hours later that threat was painfully real. When he reached Gaza, he learned those strikes had killed 14 relatives. “I was surprised when they weren’t there to welcome me,” he said through tears. “For 20 months, I had no idea.”
For Ibrahim, the pain of detention does not compare to losing his mother. “They robbed me of seeing her,” he said, touching a framed photo of her. “She was my whole world. Who is more precious than a mother?”
His father, Ahmad Abo Zbeida, says the son who returned is not the same: “He was released, alhamdulillah, but the torture really changed him.” Ibrahim now struggles to remember dates, numbers and some names, but he is determined to stay. “They want to push us out. But where would we go?” he asked. “My mother was everything to me. They took her, but they will not take our land.”
Please keep them in your duas.
https://www.thenationalnews.co