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 detained previously for being a member of the Islamic bloc at Hebron University. The treatment this time was the worst.
"They put me in the military jeep. That's when the assault began," he said.
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.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have flared in the West Bank since Palestinian Hamas fighters rampaged into southern Israel on Oct 7 and Israel launched a retaliatory assault on blockaded Gaza, killing more than 12,000 people.
While Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians have been in focus the last six weeks, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, home to three million Palestinians among more than half a million Jewish settlers, has been seething for more than 18 months.
Palestinian detainees and officials say Israel has conducted mass arrests in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and that prisoners were increasingly facing physical assaults and humiliating treatment in Israeli detention facilities.
"Israel today is in the mood of revenge," Ramallah-based Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
Amnesty International said in a Nov 8 statement that Israel had dramatically increased its use of administrative detention, a form of incarceration without charge or trial.
The Israeli military has said it operates in the West Bank against suspects involved in militant activity.
On Friday, it said most of the 1,750 Palestinians it had caught there in recent weeks were associated with Hamas.
A statement by the Israel Prison Service said that "as part of the war effort", it was imposing tougher imprisonment conditions on Palestinian political prisoners.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society, representing prisoners held by Israel, said Qawasmi was one of more than 2,700 Palestinians arrested in the West Bank since Oct 7 when Hamas fighters launched an attack in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 people were taken hostage.
The number of Palestinians held by Israel has risen to more than 7,800, including some 300 children and 72 women, said Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Authority Commission for Prisoner Affairs.
The number did not include prisoners from Gaza.
At least four Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody in recent weeks, Fares said. Autopsies showed they were tortured or medically neglected.
Hundreds more prisoners were severely beaten, their limbs and ribs broken and their bodies bruised, he added.
An Israeli prisons spokesperson said three Palestinian prisoners had died over the past six weeks and that the incidents were under investigation.
Qawasmi was placed in administrative detention at Ofer Prison, where he said the cells were overcrowded.
Of some 70 prisoners he encountered, most had visible bruises and one prisoner who was beaten until his arm was broken was denied medical attention.
Qawasmi was released after being held for two weeks. He said prison guards told him his personal belongings including his clothes, confiscated on his arrival, were tossed in the trash and he was made to leave in his undergarments.
A spokesman for the Israel Prison Service said it had no knowledge of the event described by Qawasmi, but that prisoners and detainees had the right to file complaints, which would be examined by the authorities.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, cited testimony and video evidence she said pointed to incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces.
In a Nov 13 video verified by Reuters, masked Israeli soldiers in Hebron are seen beating a Palestinian man while he live-streamed on TikTok.
The soldiers were seen forcibly entering his house, kicking him and beating him with their rifles in front of his family as his daughter screamed in panic. The man, Eyad Banat, was released hours later.
The writers are from Reuters