Published On 16/10/2025
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Last update: 02:11 (Mecca time)
An Israeli soldier who was detained by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), before his release last Monday, said that his captors responded to his demands to provide Jewish prayer tools and the Torah book during his period of captivity in the Gaza Strip.
In his first statement after his release, Israeli Channel 13 quoted soldier Matan Engerst, saying that he “asked Hamas to bring tefillin (a small leather box that a Jew ties to his forehead during prayer), the book of prayers (Siddur), and the Torah.”
He added that the Al-Qassam Brigades provided him with the possessions he requested from places where the Israeli army had stayed in Gaza.
He explained that he performed his prayers three times a day inside the tunnels, and that he miraculously survived more than once from the Israeli air bombardment that targeted his detention areas.
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Al-Qassam repeatedly stressed that it was making every effort to preserve the lives of the prisoners, and warned that the bloody and indiscriminate Israeli bombing threatened their lives.
What the Israeli soldier revealed about his treatment during captivity contradicts the harsh conditions to which Palestinian prisoners are exposed in the occupation prisons, which include torture, medical neglect, and ill-treatment, which is what was stated by all the Palestinian prisoners who were released during the past days under the prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.
Since Monday, Hamas has released the 20 living Israeli prisoners and, as of Wednesday evening, handed over the bodies of 10 others, and says it needs time to remove the remaining bodies.
In return, Israel released 250 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, in addition to 1,718 whom it arrested from the Gaza Strip after October 8, 2023.
More than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners – including children and women – are still languishing in Israeli prisons, suffering from torture, starvation, and medical neglect. Many of them have been martyred, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights and media reports.
With American support, since October 7, 2023, over the course of two years, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, leaving 67,913 martyrs, 170,134 wounded, most of them children and women, and a famine that claimed the lives of 463 Palestinians, including 157 children.