The genocidal occupation does not spare even pregnant women from its repugnant practices, including torture, systematic humiliation, starvation, and intimidation
AMONG the 93 Palestinian female detainees enduring horrific treatment in Israeli rape and torture dungeons are three pregnant women who are allowed no reprieve on humanitarian grounds by their Israeli tormentors.
In a statement on Monday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) shared details of abuses faced by Amina Shaher al-Tawil, Dana Anad Joudeh, and Manar Ibrahim Ibrahim, all of whom are being held in the occupation’s Damon Prison in Haifa. It described the conditions of their incarceration as “difficult and tragic.”
The PPS statement revealed that detainee Amina (37), from Qalqilya, is four months pregnant. She is the mother of four children and the wife of a former prisoner who spent a total of 19 years in Israeli dungeons. Israeli forces abducted her on March 18, 2026, on charges of “incitement.”
The second detainee is Dana (35), from Nablus, who is the mother of one child and five months pregnant. She has been detained since April 18, 2026, and placed under arbitrary administrative detention for six months.
Likewise, the occupation continues to detain Manar (28) from Ramallah. She is the mother of two children and four months pregnant. She was abducted by the Israelis on April 30, 2026, and remains incarcerated on charges of “incitement” on social media.
The statement said that the women have continued to be denied access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since the beginning of the genocide and have also been deprived of family visits, as is the case with all detainees in the occupation’s dungeons.
Citing testimonies from released prisoners, the PPS said that the occupation’s repressive measures against the detainees have escalated to an unprecedented degree in recent months as part of the broader system of torture to which detainees are being subjected. This includes intensified violent raids on their cells, systematic assaults, and degrading searches.
The genocidal occupation does not spare even pregnant women from its repugnant practices, which include torture, abuse, systematic humiliation, starvation, violent raids, and intimidation around the clock.
The pregnant detainees have been subjected to harsh interrogations and detained in cells that lack even the minimum standards of health and sanitation, despite their pregnancies. They have been denied any special medical consideration. This has worsened their physical and psychological suffering, leading to weight loss, emaciation, and severe exhaustion.
The PPS noted that their detention in Damon Prison represents the final stage in a chain of detention facilities through which they passed following initial interrogation and a temporary transfer to Hasharon Prison. The details of what they experienced during interrogation and in Hasharon Prison reflect an alarming level of abuse and humiliation, particularly the practice of forcing them to undergo strip searches, which has become one of the most prominent measures deployed against detainees.
The PPS stressed that the continued detention of pregnant prisoners under these conditions constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obligates an occupying power to provide healthcare and special protection for pregnant women and to protect them from any cruel, degrading, or inhumane treatment.
The statement revealed that the Israelis have detained more than 765 women since the beginning of the Gaza genocide in October 2023, including girls, elderly women, and women from various social backgrounds and sectors, such as students, lawyers, journalists, activists, teachers, homemakers, doctors, wives of prisoners and martyrs, sisters of prisoners and martyrs, and mothers of prisoners and martyrs. Some women were detained together with their husbands, thereby depriving their children of the presence of both parents. The vast majority of those detained were held either under administrative detention based on undisclosed “secret files” or on accusations of “incitement,” a charge that has increasingly served as a key pretext for repression since the genocide began.
Like Palestinian men, women in Israeli dungeons have also been subjected to horrific sexual assault, including rape. In November last year, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) published the harrowing testimony of a 42-year-old woman.
She told PCHR’s lawyer:
At dawn I heard the soldiers shouting, saying that morning prayers were forbidden, and I think it was the fourth day after my arrest from Gaza. The soldiers moved me to a place I didn’t know because my eyes were blindfolded, and they ordered me to take off my clothes. I did so. They put me on a metal table, pressed my chest and head against it, cuffed my hands to the end of the bed, and pulled my legs apart forcefully. I felt a penis penetrating my anus and a man raping me. I started screaming, and they beat me on my back and head while I was blindfolded. I felt the man who was raping me ejaculate inside my anus. I kept screaming and being beaten, and I could hear a camera—so I believe they were filming me. The rape lasted about 10 minutes. After that, they left me for an hour in the same position, with my hands cuffed to the bed with metal handcuffs, my face on the bed, my feet on the floor, and I was completely naked.
Again, after an hour, I was raped fully in the same position, with penetration into my vagina, and I was beaten while I screamed. There were several soldiers; I heard them laughing and the camera clicking as it took pictures. This rape was very quick and there was no ejaculation. During the rape they beat me with their hands on my head and back.
I cannot describe what I felt; I wished for death every moment. After they raped me, I was left alone in the same room, hands still cuffed to the bed and without clothes for many hours. I could hear the soldiers outside speaking Hebrew and laughing. Later, I was raped again vaginally. I screamed, but they beat me whenever I tried to resist. After more than an hour, I’m not sure about the time, a masked soldier entered, removed my blindfold, lifted his face covering; he had white skin and was tall. He asked if I spoke English; I said no. He said he was Russian and ordered me to masturbate his penis. I refused, and he hit me in the face after raping me.
That day I was raped twice. I was left naked the whole day in the room where I spent three days. On the first day I was raped twice; on the second day I was raped twice; on the third day I remained without clothes while they looked at me through the door slit and filmed me. One soldier said they would post my photos on social media. While I was in the room, my period started; then they told me to put on clothes and transferred me to another room.
There are currently more than 9,600 Palestinians enduring inhumane treatment in the Israeli rape and torture dungeons. That figure includes 93 women and 350 children. — Palestine Will Be Free
