Hamza al-Qawasmi was at home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron last month when Israeli forces stormed in after midnight
and told him he was under arrest.

The 27-year-old coffee seller had taken part in marches against the Gaza war. He had been arrested and detained previously for being a member of the Islamic bloc at Hebron University but he said the treatment this time was the worst.

“They put me in the military jeep. That’s when the assault began,” he told Reuters.

Qawasmi said his captors blindfolded and handcuffed him, took him away, accused him of being an ISIS member, beat him and at some point removed the blindfold so he could see them point their rifles to his head as they threatened to kill him.

The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on Qawasmi’s case.

Israeli-Palestinian tensions have flared in the West Bank since Palestinian Hamas gunmen rampaged into southern Israel on October 7 and Israel launched a retaliatory assault on blockaded Gaza, killing more than 12,000 people, according to a Palestinian health ministry tally in the Hamas-run enclave.