A famous Palestinian author who was released last month after more than 32 years of suffering in Israel has spent his last two years facing prisons as another face of the war in Gaza.
Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoirs have been translated into seven languages and removed to win a famous Gaza bust and then released in Egypt, where most remain in Limbo.
Abu Srour, 56, recounted a sharp increase in the use of beatings and withholding food and heat after the Gaza War erupted in October 2023.
“The uniform of the prison guards has changed, with a chest tag with the word ‘warriors’ written on it, or ‘warriors, and tortured like warriors,'” he said.
A UN commission listed 75 deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody between 7 October 2023 and 31 August 2025. The Israeli prison service has repeatedly denied the use of torture in its jails.
Speaking by phone from Egypt, Abu Srour also described the “Dizzying Shock” of being driven straight from a five-star hotel in Cairo as guests of the Egyptian authorities.
As a young man, Abu Srour took part in the first Intifada, the uprising in Palestine between 1987 and 1993, when he was tried by the master of Israel who wanted to quit the master of Abu Srour to become a co-worker.
Based on a confession he made under torture, Abu Srour was sentenced in 1993 to life in prison without parole. During decades marked by long periods of solitary confinement, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s in politics and other writings expelled from prison.
His prison memoir, the story of a wall: Reflections on hope and freedom, was largely dictated by phone conversations with a relative over two years. It was translated from Arabic for publication in seven languages and was a finalist for ARAB PRIZE OF ARA awarded annually by the institute of the Arab world in Paris.
Appeals for his release have not been heard for decades, so when the prison officials came after the 10 October stop for the prisoners to be released, Abu Srour tried not to let them down.
“They were calling cell numbers and I was sitting on my bed in the bedroom at 6 feeling like I wasn’t part of it,” he said. “There were many times I could have been a part of it all these years. But the whole thing was so big and painful, I didn’t want to be around. I didn’t want to talk.
“But then they came to my cell and they said: ‘Nasser, prepare yourself.’ God’s grace finally reached me. My friends hug and kiss me and I have no confidence. “
Abu Srour said that with the outbreak of the Gaza War, which was attacked by the Hamas attack in Israel on 7 October 2023, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Palestinian prisons in Palestinian prisons in Palestinian prisons in Israeli prisons worsened.
“Any place where there are no cameras is a place for brutality,” he said. “They would tie our hands behind our heads and throw us on the floor and then they would start stomping on our feet.”
Israel’s National Security Minister, itamar ben-Gvir, boasted that under his control Israeli prisons are no longer “holiday camps”. Abu Srour said all literacy materials were taken away under the regime.
“All life in prison culture has ended in the last two years, so there is any biological life. Everyone wants to live in their own way. And we are always hungry,” he said. Daily rations were kept at survival levels and he said he lost 12kg of weight.
The prisoners were only allowed one set of thin clothing, so they were always cold on winter nights. “Our bodies are weak. We cannot control even a medium temperature,” he said. “Every time they leave the prison, everyone tries to be their friends so they can get their T-shirt or underwear, or whatever.”
Abu Srour said that in the 24 hours before the release of the prisoners who were released under the ceasefire and boarded the buses to leave, they were subjected to a more intense final round of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beatings of beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats beats.
In the 48 hours of travel that followed, they were not allowed to open the curtains of the buses that crossed into Israel and then headed south from Gaza to Rafah crossing into Egypt. After entering Egypt he saw heaven for the first time outside the prison angry.
Buses deposited 154 freed prisoners in a luxury Cairo Hotel, bringing shocks of its own. “I never went to a hotel before. I did everything for the first time like a child, going in and out in a lift, to know about the room service, how to be seen,” said Abu Srour.
Part of the shock was meeting four of his sisters and one brother for the first time in decades. “It’s another source of stress for me … that we’ve been like 33 years. It feels cruel because it’s been denied for so long,” he said. He remembers thinking: “Is it OK to hug them?”
The freed prisoners were watched by Egyptian security officials as they mingled with tourists, and took their cues from them on how to act.
“In the morning we saw the buffet and we saw all the food. So everyone put 2kg of food on their plate. We were ashamed of what to do with our knife and fork,” said Abu Srour. “All my feelings are mixed and tense. I’m ashamed. I’m terrified of my language, unable to give meaning to my surroundings.”
Last Saturday, after the daily mail published a story that revealed the presence of Palestinian prisoners in what was given their belongings in a hotel in the desert, an hour’s drive from the capital.
That sudden move, ordered by buses to take them to an unknown location chosen by others, is a reminder for Abu Srour that they are not yet free.
He was given several options by the Third Class who were willing to accept him on a higher standard and tried to decide where the grounds of access should go for his family, and whether he would continue to write.
“I don’t want a comfortable country,” he said. “I don’t want a country without questions or a country without reasons.”