Sami Jaradat’s Fairy Tale of Israeli Terror and Torture of Palestinian Prisoners

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Sami Jaradat has given the world a fairy tale of Israeli terror and torture of Palestinian prisoners: “Freed Palestinian recounts ‘deliberate starvation’ practices in Israeli prisons,” Middle East Monitor, February 5, 2025:

Jaradat called the conditions of Palestinians from Gaza in Israeli detention “tragic” and “extremely harsh”.

“We had no knowledge about their conditions, but we heard news that they were being treated even worse than us,” he said.

Jaradat wants us to believe that the treatment meted out to prisoners from Gaza was even more “inhumane” than that suffered by prisoners from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). How does he know this? “We had no knowledge about their conditions,” but “we heard” about it. Case closed.

He also recounted reports that Israeli guards would hang prisoners from Gaza upside down by puncturing their feet.

Yes, of course. Israeli guards are famous for their diabolical torture of Palestinian prisoners. That is, when those prisoners can spare a moment from studying for their college degrees that the Israeli government makes available to them, and even pays for their tuition. Why not ask those prisoners to take a break from their studies so that they can be hung upside down. How? By “puncturing their feet”? What in god’s name is that? Were they being crucified upside down, with nails driven into their feet? It’s hard to know what Jaradat means. It’s all so preposterous.

Thousands of Palestinians are believed to have been arrested by the Israeli army during the course of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war [sic] on the enclave….

A “genocidal war” in which the IDF dropped nine million leaflets, sent fifteen million text messages, made sixteen million robocalls within the first four months of the war, all in order to warn civilians away from sites about to be targeted. And let’s not forget that of the 47,000 Gazans killed, 20,000 were members of Hamas, and another 14,000 died from diseases and accidents, leaving 13,000 civilians who died as a result of the war. The civilian-to-combatant ratio in this “genocidal” war is 13:20, which is less than 1:1 — a figure unparalleled in the annals of modern warfare. That’s why British Colonel Richard Kemp has described the IDF as “the most moral army in the world” and West Point Professor John Spencer has concluded from his study of the war in Gaza that “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires.” Genocide? What “genocide”?

“We were freed at a high price paid by the Palestinian people in Gaza in terms of their lives, money and homes with our people living in unenviable living conditions,” he said.

The Palestinians in Gaza “paid a high price” in lives, money, and homes for one reason: the terror group Hamas deliberately embeds its fighters , and hides its weapons, in civilian buildings. That is what necessitated the attacks on so many buildings — the infrastructure that now lies in ruins — that Hamas had taken over to use for its own purposes.  As for the “high price” in lives lost, the numbers are in fact far less than they could have been, because of the IDF’s practice of warning civilians to leave areas about to be targeted. Of the 47,000 Gazans who have been killed since the war began, 20,000 were Hamas terrorists, and another 14,000 died from causes such as diseases and accidents, unrelated to the war. 13,000 civilian deaths are regrettable, out of a total population of 2.2 million, but hardly a “high price” to pay.

Jaradat, originally from Jenin in the northern West Bank, was deported by Israel to Gaza after his release, a move that prevented him from reuniting with his wife, children and grandchildren after decades of separation.

Oh how heart-rending. The convicted terrorist Sami Jaradat was set free in Gaza, while his wife, children, and grandchildren are apparently still in Jenin, in Judea. But nothing prevents them from joining him in Gaza; it’s a temporary delay in their reuniting that is being presented as a terrible cruelty on part of those malevolent Israelis. The reason he was sent to Gaza rather than back to his hometown of Jenin is clear: before he was imprisoned, he had been the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Jenin. The Israelis did not want him rejoining the group in that city, or providing it with someone to rally round; in Gaza, so the IDF reasons, he will be less able to do harm.