Torture in Israeli prisons rose sharply during war, says freed Palestinian author - Nasser Abu Srour says prisons became like ‘another front’ in Gaza conflict and tells of struggle to adjust to life outside

A Palestinian protester holds a placard in 2015 bearing a portrait of Nasser Abu Srour during a demonstration marking Palestinian Prisoner Day in the West Bank town of Bilin, near Ramallah. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

Julian Borger

Tue 4 Nov 2025 02.00 EST

A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war.

Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exiled to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.

Abu Srour, 56, recounted a sharp increase in the use of beatings and the deprivation of food and warmth after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.

“The prison guards uniform changed, with a tag on the chest written on it the word ‘fighters’, or ‘warriors’, and they started acting like they were in a war and this was another front, and they started beating, torturing, killing like warriors,” he said.

A UN commission listed 75 deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody between 7 October 2023 and 31 August 2025... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/04/freed-palestinian-author-nasser-abu-srour-israel-prisons-gaza-war 

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES & QUOTES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies] 

Guardian Book Review: The Tale of a Wall by Nasser Abu Srour– a Palestinian prisoner writes... Jailed since the first intifada, Abu Srour charts a deeply personal journey through the conflict that has defined his life

A placard of Nasser Abu Srour is held aloft during a 2015 demonstration marking Palestinian Prisoner Day in the West Bank town of Bilin, near Ramallah. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

Attempts to end the violence in Gaza have focused on the exchange of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. One of the many Palestinians is Nasser Abu Srour, who has been incarcerated since 1993 for his alleged involvement in the death of an Israeli intelligence officer during the first intifada. This is the fourth time the prospect of freedom has been raised, the past three ending in disappointment, even when his release was part of a 2013 peace process pledge brokered by the Obama administration.

His experience might be difficult to imagine but for the extraordinary memoir he has written, translated into lyrical prose by Luke Leafgren. “This is the story of a wall that somehow chose me as the witness of what it said and did,” he begins. In a prison, walls are ever present, the single reliable feature of the world. The idea of the wall becomes a focal point for Abu Srour’s narrative, the stability to which he clings, the source of comfort and continuity.

His humanity shines through, even as he endures an incarceration with no end in sight

Aspects of this life are familiar from his upbringing in a refugee camp in Bethlehem, his parents both having been displaced by the Nakba in 1948. The camp, walled in on four sides, unable to expand to fit its growing population, erupted in 1987 as part of the first intifada. The response of the occupying forces was mass repression and imprisonment, including Abu Srour’s. .....         READ MORE          https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/25/the-tale-of-a-wall-by-nasser-abu-srour-review-a-palestinian-prisoner-writes

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

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Palestine Festival of Literature

@PalFest

Today marks the release of Nasser Abu Srour's prison memoir THE TALE OF A WALL. Imprisoned since 1994 and with no hope of release, Srour's memoir is a soaring existential inquiry that refuses to be bound by the walls of his captors. Encouraging to see major publishing houses bringing this out in several countries. Find it in the USA from @otherpress,  @penguinrandom in the UK, and  @Feltrinelli_ in Italy.

 

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The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom Paperback – April 30, 2024

by Nasser Abu Srour (Author), Luke Leafgren (Translator)

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This passionate autobiography—at once history lesson, prison memoir, metaphysical inquiry, love story, and cry for justice—provides insights into the Israeli occupation and the struggle of the Palestinian people.

One of more than 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before October 7, 2023, Nasser Abu Srour serves a life sentence with no possibility of parole. From the Nakba to the disastrous consequences of the Oslo Accords, he explains with great acumen how the Intifada of the Stones (1987–1993) ultimately provided the only option for young Palestinians in refugee camps to infuse meaning into their lives, especially as they faced a constant threat of humiliation and manipulation by Israeli intelligence. This uprising leads to Abu Srour’s incarceration, after he was forced to confess, under torture, to involvement in the killing of a Shin Bet officer who recruited his cousin as an informant.

Within his cell, Abu Srour turns the Wall that has deprived him of freedom into his interlocutor and the source of stability that allows him to endure a chaotic, hopeless existence. The limitations of this survival strategy—and singular literary device—become painfully evident when falling in love causes Abu Srour to lose his grip on the Wall. Only by writing the story of his imprisonment and the story of his love does Abu Srour find his way back. In doing so, he has created a work of art that transcends his pain while shining a glaring light on the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinian situation  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1635423872/ref=sw_img_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1