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Released Gaza Detainees Say they Were Tortured by Israel

Former Gaza hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya is among the Palestinian detainees who say they were 'tortured' in Israeli prisons. Bashar TALEB / AFP
Former Gaza hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya is among the Palestinian detainees who say they were 'tortured' in Israeli prisons. Bashar TALEB / AFP
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Released Gaza Detainees Say they Were Tortured by Israel

Former Gaza hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya is among the Palestinian detainees who say they were 'tortured' in Israeli prisons. Bashar TALEB / AFP
Former Gaza hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya is among the Palestinian detainees who say they were 'tortured' in Israeli prisons. Bashar TALEB / AFP

Blindfolded, beaten and sometimes bitten by dogs, Gazans released from Israeli prisons allege being tortured amid the Israel-Hamas war, which rights groups say has worsened conditions for detainees.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, former director of Al-Shifa, Gaza's biggest hospital, is the latest to report mistreatment by Israel, Reuters said.
Salmiya, one among dozens of detainees freed Monday, said "several inmates died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine."
Israel's army and Shin Bet intelligence service have not responded to his account, though they have rejected past accusations.
While the United Nations and others have long raised concerns about conditions for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, rights groups say legal changes since the Gaza war erupted have aggravated the situation.
AFP interviewed some of the 50 prisoners taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip after their release by Israel on June 11.
"I was beaten day and night. Our eyes were blindfolded, our hands and feet shackled and they set dogs on us," Mahmud al-Zaanin, 37, recounted from his hospital bed, noting the beatings sometimes targeted his genitals.
Legs amputated
"They asked me where (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar was, where Hamas was, where our prisoners were, and why I participated on October 7," he said.
Zaanin said he did not take part in Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel that led to 1,195 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 38,011 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Zaanin said he was deprived of sleep and bathroom access and denied medical treatment. "We urinated in our clothes."
Released inmate Othman al-Kafarneh told AFP his "hands were injured from electric torture" and described prisoners being blindfolded and moved, never knowing their locations.
Kafarneh said he saw "more than 30 prisoners with amputated legs, some with both legs missing, and some with both eyes missing."
In April, the Haaretz newspaper quoted a letter to Israel's defense ministry from a doctor at an Israeli army camp.
"Prisoners from Gaza have had their legs amputated due to the effects of shackles, they defecate in diapers and are continuously restrained, which violates medical ethics and the law," it said.
In May, AFP questioned released prisoners at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza, where Musa Yussef Mansur recounted, "We slept for two hours, then they brought dogs and set them on us at night".
"Some young men died from excess beatings and dog attacks," Mansur said, showing scars on his arms which he said were from dog bites.
Legal battle
The United Nations has called Israel's treatment of prisoners "unacceptable".
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights commissioner, told AFP: "We have received reports of torture, mistreatment, handcuffing, deprivation of food, of water of medication, and these are very worrying reports.
"We have raised them directly with the Israeli authorities and we have asked for a transparent investigation."
Authorities did not respond to AFP questions.
In May, the Israeli army said it "rejects outright" allegations in a US media report of stripping, sexually abusing and electrocuting detainees during interrogations.
The army acknowledged there have been 36 deaths, attributing them to detainees who were sick or had been wounded in the war.
It said the military adheres to Israeli and international law, emphasizing that detainees released to Gaza "are under the control of a terrorist organization that can force them to provide false information".
After Hamas's attacks, Israel's parliament amended detention rules.
Changes to the Unlawful Combatants Law in December have been used to detain Palestinians in special camps, including Sde Teiman in the Negev desert where Salmiya was held.
Israel can now detain prisoners for 45 days without an administrative process, compared with 96 hours previously.
Prisoners can be held for 75 days without a court hearing, up from 14 days, and this can be extended to 180 days.
Judges can prevent a detainee from contacting a lawyer.
"Some detainees have not been visited by a lawyer for more than eight months and are being tried via Zoom without being brought to court and without lawyers," said Tal Steiner, director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
Steiner's group knew of three camps where detainees were shackled 24 hours a day in open cages.
"We believe in the law to help change these violations, so we have filed a petition," said Steiner.
The government has not issued a formal response.
A state attorney told a supreme court hearing in May, however, that there were 2,000 Gazan detainees classified as "unlawful combatants" under permanent detention orders, meaning they have been held for over 45 days.
Hundreds are awaiting indictment, the attorney added, while more than 1,500 have been released and returned to Gaza.

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Arab World

Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
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Lebanon PM Pledges Reconstruction on Visit to Ruined Border Towns

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office shows Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam being showered with confetti as he is received by locals during a tour in the heavily-damaged southern village of Dhayra near the border with Israel on February 7, 2026. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border on Saturday, pledging reconstruction.

It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January.

Swathes of south Lebanon's border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Lebanon's government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Visiting Tayr Harfa, around three kilometers from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said frontier towns and villages had suffered "a true catastrophe".

He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns.

Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags.

In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said authorities would "rehabilitate 32 kilometers of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure" and power lines in the district.

Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250 million to support Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11 billion in total.

Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.

The second phase of the government's disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40 kilometers south of Beirut.

Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticized the army's progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas.

Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses.

Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Friday said the reform of Lebanon's banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts.

The French diplomat met Lebanon's army chief Rodolphe Haykal on Saturday, the military said.

Arab World

Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Over 2,200 ISIS Detainees Transferred to Iraq from Syria, Says Iraqi Official

One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)
One of the American buses transporting ISIS fighters, according to a security source from the Syrian Democratic Forces, heads from Syria towards Iraq, in Qamishli, Syria, February 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq has so far received 2,225 ISIS group detainees, whom the US military began transferring from Syria last month, an Iraqi official told AFP on Saturday.

They are among up to 7,000 ISIS detainees whose transfer from Syria to Iraq the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced last month, in a move it said was aimed at "ensuring that the terrorists remain in secure detention facilities".

Previously, they had been held in prisons and camps administered by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.

The announcement of the transfer plan last month came after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared that the SDF's role in confronting ISIS had come to an end.

Saad Maan, head of the security information cell attached to the Iraqi prime minister's office, told AFP on Saturday that "Iraq has received 2,225 terrorists from the Syrian side by land and air, in coordination with the international coalition", which Washington has led since 2014 to fight IS.

He said they are being held in "strict, regular detention centers".

A Kurdish military source confirmed to AFP the "continued transfer of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq under the protection of the international coalition".

On Saturday, an AFP photographer near the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria saw a US military convoy and 11 buses with tinted windows.

- Iraq calls for repatriation -

ISIS seized swathes of northern and western Iraq starting in 2014, until Iraqi forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat it in 2017.

Iraq is still recovering from the severe abuses committed by the extremists.

In recent years, Iraqi courts have issued death and life sentences against those convicted of terrorism offences.

Thousands of Iraqis and foreign nationals convicted of membership in the group are incarcerated in Iraqi prisons.

On Monday, the Iraqi judiciary announced it had begun investigative procedures involving 1,387 detainees it received as part of the US military's operation.

In a statement to the Iraqi News Agency on Saturday, Maan said "the established principle is to try all those involved in crimes against Iraqis and those belonging to the terrorist ISIS organization before the competent Iraqi courts".

Among the detainees being transferred to Iraq are Syrians, Iraqis, Europeans and holders of other nationalities, according to Iraqi security sources.

Iraq is calling on the concerned countries to repatriate their citizens and ensure their prosecution.

Maan noted that "the process of handing over the terrorists to their countries will begin once the legal requirements are completed".

Arab World

Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack by RSF in Sudan Kills 24, Including 8 Children, Doctors’ Group Says

Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)
Displaced Sudanese wait to receive humanitarian aid at the Abu al-Naga displacement camp in the Gedaref State, some 420km east of the capital Khartoum on February 6, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack by a notorious paramilitary group hit a vehicle carrying displaced families in central Sudan Saturday, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, a doctors’ group said.

The attack by the Rapid Support Forces occurred close to the city of Rahad in North Kordofan province, said the Sudan Doctors Network, which tracks the country’s ongoing war.

The vehicle transported displaced people who fled fighting in the Dubeiker area of North Kordofan, the doctors’ group said in a statement. Among the dead children were two infants, the group said.

The doctors’ group urged the international community and rights organizations to “take immediate action to protect civilians and hold the RSF leadership directly accountable for these violations.”

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war against the Sudanese military for control of the country for about three years.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The devastating war has killed more than 40,000 people, according to UN figures, but aid groups say that is an undercount and the true number could be many times higher.

It created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with over 14 million people forced to flee their homes. It fueled disease outbreaks and pushed parts of the country into famine.