Skip to content

7.2 The Body under Pressure

7.2 The Body under Pressure

Torture operates not only through its immediate infliction of pain but also through its cumulative psychological effects and emotional resonance, which persist long after the act itself. Through the various torture methods used, this section will not only try to understand how these torture practices try to affect the Palestinian prisoner but also how the person resist bodily and psychological attacks, which is discussed in the next chapter.

As noted in my research journal while I was based at Birzeit University in 2016, I reflected on what a Palestinian man in his early 30s told me about Palestinian prisoner releases. I had attended one such release in Ramallah earlier that week. He told me about his time in Israeli prisons during the Second Intifada and how, a decade later, this still affected him. He said there are still moments where he finds himself standing in front of the window, staring vacantly into the distance. A result of having been tortured. The thing that helped him place what he had been subjected to was the book The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry. He suggested that I read the first three chapters, as those were the most significant to him after he had been released.

His reference to The Body in Pain is telling. Scarry’s work captures how torture collapses language, erodes subjectivity, and weaponises the body’s sensory experience, insights that resonate deeply with many testimonies of Palestinian prisoners. The lingering trauma he described illustrates how torture exceeds the moment of physical violence, embedding itself in memory and everyday life.

This encounter illustrates the enduring effects of torture, not only on the individual psyche but as part of a broader architecture of settler-colonial control. As the following sections explore, such experiences are embedded in institutional practices that aim to dismantle resistance and reshape subjectivity through pain. As Walid Daka writes, torture is aimed at “the spirit and the mind” by turning “your own senses and mind into tools of daily torture” (Daka 2011, 235)5.

To reiterate, settler-colonialism, at its core, seeks to erase the Indigenous. Because ethnic cleansing cannot take the shape of fast-moving and spectacular genocide without drawing international condemnation and possible sanctions1, slow ways of erasure, as described in the previous chapters, are used. The paradox of international law frameworks is that while Israel at times appears to evade these frameworks to carry out slow erasure, it also uses these same frameworks selectively to legitimise its actions. This dual strategy underscores the limitations, and complicity, of international legal regimes in settler-colonial contexts.

7.2.1 Cruelty unleashed: torture

While conducting research on the use of torture against Palestinians by Israel, Shazain, whom I was living with in Ramallah at the time, offered to share his personal experiences with me. Although his English was strong, we agreed it would be more comfortable and accurate for him to recount his story in Arabic. I asked my friend and research assistant to interpret the conversation, allowing Shazain to speak in his native language and express himself with greater ease and nuance.

The First Intifada was a defining period Shazain’s life. He told me his story during an interview in 2019. Raised in a politically active Palestinian family in Ramallah, he grew up surrounded by resistance; several of his relatives were involved in the uprising. At 17, he joined one of the Palestinian political factions opposing the occupation, and in 1987, he was arrested for the first time.

During the course of the Intifada, Shazain was imprisoned seven times, each detention varying in length. Reflecting on those years, he recalls, “the most time I spent at one time was the 13 months, and then I went to jail for another year and then another ten months so adding them all together I spent over three years in prison and these are only the times that I used to get sentenced for, there are other times where they would take me for 17 days for interrogation and then they would send me home.”

He sat beside me on the couch, coffee in hand, as I did the same. The moment felt familiar, almost routine as we lived together. I asked him about his first arrest, and he began to tell his story:

When they first arrested me from my parents’ house here, they took me to Ramallah’s prison and it was really cold, they took me in January 1987, they put us in an open playground it was raining and really cold. They had my hands and legs tied and threw us in a rain pool for 3 days, every soldier that is passing by used to step on us and beat us. We were three guys, but the other two guys are not from my group. They took me to the al-Muskubīya in Jerusalem. When they transported us from Ramallah to al-Muskubīya2, they put black plastic bags over our heads and these smelt really bad. When we first got to al-Muskubīya they had this welcome ceremony where they would beat us up. Then they hung me on a pipe in the playground in al-Muskubīya in a way where my feet don’t reach the ground so I can’t stand on my feet and I am hanging from a pipe from my hands. This lasted for a whole week. They would hang us for a long period of time and then take us to the interrogation… psychological interrogation and physical pain. They would beat us. We would call this the shabih3 and it was really hard. (Interview with Shazain, 14 May 2019)

Shazain’s account vividly illustrates how torture operates through the body. The cold, rain-soaked conditions, the physical restraints, and the prolonged exposure to harsh weather all serve as tools of bodily subjugation. The sensory descriptions, the smell of the plastic bags, the pain of being suspended, and the recurring beatings, highlight how the experience of torture is not only about immediate suffering but also about prolonged degradation. The reference to the “welcome ceremony” of beatings upon arrival at al-Muskubīya underscores the routinised nature of torture within Israeli detention facilities. This form of structured violence is not arbitrary but institutionalised, designed to break the detainee’s will from the outset. The practice of suspending prisoners in painful positions, the shabih, reflects a systematic method of both physical punishment and psychological domination. By forcing detainees into positions of extreme vulnerability, captors reinforce their power while instilling fear and uncertainty. Shazain’s gentle voice continued:

After the shabih they take you to the most painful phase because you are already in pain from all the beatings and, more over, some interrogators used to use try to sexually harass you, get too close to you and said that they want to rape you. Even for males. And when they couldn’t take any information from me, they put me in a room that was four metres by four metres, and they would leave me there for three hours. It would be really hot inside and when my body becomes really warm and sweaty, then they would open the door. It was raining outside, and they would leave me outside in the cold for two hours and then take me inside again and so on until I got to a point where I couldn’t stand on my feet so I couldn’t stand up at all so when they wanted to take me to interrogate me, two soldiers would carry me by my hands and feet. (Interview with Shazain, 14 May 2019)

The transition from shabih to further stages of torture highlights a deliberate escalation of suffering. By the time Shazain reached this next phase, his body was already weakened from sustained beatings and forced positions. The systematic nature of this progression describes a structured methodology of physical exhaustion, where interrogators rely on accumulated pain to amplify suffering in subsequent stages. The description of being unable to stand, requiring soldiers to carry him to interrogation, underscores the calculated destruction of bodily autonomy. Shazain’s story continued with his transfer to the al-Jalameh prison close to Haifa. It illustrates how incarceration is structured to dismantle agency, with each phase of detention, from initial capture to interrogation, designed to impose maximum bodily and psychological distress:

They welcomed me the same way I was welcomed in al-Muskubīya and after that they put me in a cell, and it was one metre and eighty centimetres. I couldn’t raise my back or spread my feet and the floor was very dirty and had bugs. Bugs would walk on us in the cell. When it is time to interrogate, they used many methods just like the shabih, but they would do it on a chair, so we would be sitting on a chair, our legs tied to the chair and our hands tied on the chair from behind. The soldiers used to come and sit on our backs while we are getting interrogated, and when you refuse to answer he would jump on your back and after a while of this you start losing your strength and you feel that your ribs are getting crushed. After we finished this phase there is another one and they call it the shaking phase, and what you need to know about this is that there are many cases against the Israeli intelligence regarding this method of interrogation because this method leads prisoners to lose their minds and go crazy. So, what they would do is that they would tie you and when you don’t answer the interrogator they would shake you in a very harsh way and the shaking is concentrated between the shoulders and head, some people lost their mind from that shaking, imagine getting shaken and you didn’t eat enough or sleep enough … days would pass without us sleeping, because even inside those small cells they would put loud music or they would put sounds that we are sure that they are recordings and not real of people screaming and begging the interrogators to stop and that they are going to admit and this makes you feel like your turn is coming and you will admit at some point. So, it was physical and mental torture at the same time. (Interview with Shazain, 14 May 2019)

His story further demonstrates how incarceration under occupation is not merely punitive but designed to dismantle the Palestinian prisoner’s body, mind, and the will to resist. The structured progression of violence, from spatial confinement to physical torment and psychological manipulation, illustrates the institutionalisation of torture as a central mechanism of settler-colonial control. The inability to move freely serves as a method of bodily subjugation, reinforcing the broader strategy of dehumanisation. The presence of bugs and filth further degrades the detainee, breaking down their sense of self-worth and reinforcing a loss of autonomy.

The transition to shabih illustrates the systematic variation of pain-inflicting techniques. The act of tying detainees to a chair and placing weight on their backs transforms the interrogation space into an arena where bodies are deliberately weakened. The slow, methodical crushing of the ribs shows how pain is weaponised to wear down resistance. Shazain’s account of the shaking method is particularly significant due to its documented psychological and physical effects. The violent shaking of the head and shoulders is known to cause neurological damage, vertigo, and, in extreme cases, permanent cognitive impairment. Dr Robert Kirschner, director of Physicians for Human Rights International’s forensic programme, explains that the “shaking produces a differential motion between the skull and the brain such that the brain will continue in motion after the motion of the head has stopped, causing shearing of neuronal axons during deformation of the brain, and contusions of the surface of the brain ... Shaking poses a grave risk of severe and permanent cerebral injury.” (Porter 1995, 1323)6. This analysis was made in the context of documented practices used against Palestinian detainees, underscoring that Shazain’s account is not an isolated experience but part of a broader, systematic pattern of violations. These forms of abuse demonstrate how torture operates through the body in both visible and internalised ways. The shaking phase represents an escalation from bodily destruction to cognitive destabilisation, pushing the detainee to the brink of psychological collapse.

Shazain’s final statement, "It was physical and mental torture at the same time", captures the essence of the Israeli strategy. The Israeli interrogation/torture system does not rely on a singular form of suffering but layers multiple techniques to create an overwhelming experience of disempowerment. This underscores how Palestinian prisoners are both physically and psychologically subjugated in the process of breaking Palestinian resistance.

The times Shazain refers to being in prison without having been convicted is what is called administrative detention. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been held in administrative detentions since 1967, with numbers fluctuating throughout the years (Pelleg-Sryck 2011)7. During administrative detention, Palestinians are jailed for an uncertain time, initially for six months, but this can be renewed indefinitely. This leads to despair and the crushing of hope as the renewals often come only days before the end of the detention order. The perpetual loop of emotions, from the build-up of hope to be released to the crushing of that hope and the despair that follows, is the reality of the person being detailed4. The insecurity and constant uncertainty about when the detention will end can cause acute pressure on the subjected individual and contribute to psychological disorders (Baum and Davidson 1985)8 marked by their respective sustainability, which means the effects shape not only the prisoner for a long time after release but also impacts the family and relatives (Sutker et al. 1990, 1991)9 10.

Torture techniques and maltreatment used by Israel have led to the deaths of at least 285 Palestinian detainees between 1967 and 2024, including 48 Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons since 7 October 2023 (Rajoob 2024)11. Before 1999, when the Israeli High Court of Justice (IHCJ) prohibited torture, the forms of torture used included such methods as electric shocks, inserting needles into genitals, using a stick or a bullet as tools for rape, and beatings (Francis 2017)12. After the decision by the IHCJ, the methods of torture changed to forms that do not leave visible marks on the body, such as subjection to several days of sleep deprivation, tying the body in painful stress positions, and the violent shaking of prisoners (Francis 2017)12.

Physical pain “has no voice, but when it at last finds a voice, it begins to tell a story” (Scarry 1985, 3)13. Personal pain remains something unsharable. For the person experiencing the pain, it cannot be grasped and is resistant to being put into language. Rather, as Scarry puts it, physical pain actively destroys language and reverts language back to “the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned” (Scarry 1985, 4)13. Pain, then, has no referential content, nor does it take an object which culminates in the pain resisting objectification in language, and when it does, it is eliminated. When described afterwards, this makes pain very hard to bring into words and thus to communicate. Expressing the pain another human being has suffered comes with great impediments; as Scarry writes, the most radically private of experiences – pain – enters the realm of public discourse (Scarry 1985)13. Thus, according to Scarry (Scarry 1985)13, the body cannot speak in the sense that it cannot convey thought. However, under torture, the tortured individual is able, even encouraged, to express pain and ask for the pain to stop, something completely at the mercy of those who torture. The communication of the infliction of pain through torture is one that is of great importance, as it helps not only to bring torture into the public debate but also to stress that torture is effectively happening.

With torture, power is communicated through the infliction of pain, not only the power at the moment of torture but also the power over the tortured individual beyond the torture. For Scarry (Scarry 1985)13, the incontestability of the reality of the inflicted pain is conferred to the incontestable reality of the power that inflicts the pain. The use of torture finds its origin in the reality that the power of the unstable sovereignty is highly contestable (Scarry 1985)13. One could then ask if the power of the sovereign within the confinement of the space of torture is a reflection of the reality of its power outside the walls in which the tortured prisoner is held, or rather, whether the real power outside the walls of the houses of pain is exaggerated, even imaginary, and that this is the reason for the sovereign torture. These practices, rooted in a denial of pain and a perception of the colonised body as imaginary or exaggerated, set the stage for the next section, which explores how torture is rationalised and rendered invisible within settler-colonial regimes.

References

  1. See, for instance, the case that was brought to the ICJ in December 2023, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) brought by South Africa and supported by other nations (https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192). ↩

  2. al-Muskubīya (المسكوبية), also known as the Russian Compound is located in West Jerusalem and is known as an Israeli interrogation centre for Palestinian detainees and prisoners from a variety of age groups, including children. The Palestinian NGO Addameer (Addameer 2018)14 has communicated on the torture used at al-Muskubīya. Several of the sources used in this work also talk about the torture they endured at the centre. ↩

  3. Shabih (شبح) is a torture technique which involves the exposure of the tied-up body to prolonged sitting or standing in painful positions. ↩

  4. According to article one of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, General Assembly Resolution 39/46, 10 December 1984, these points of affinity were observed in the Concluding Observations of the Committee Against Torture: Israel A/52/44, 9 May 1997, paras. 253‐260; the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee Against Torture: Israel, CAT/C/IRS/CO4, 23 June 2009; and the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee Against Torture: Israel, CAT/C/ISR/CO/5, 3 June 2016, para. 22-23. ↩

  5. Daka, Walid. 2011. "Consciousness Molded or the [Re-identification]{.nocase} of Torture." In Threat: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israel. Pluto Press. ↩

  6. Porter, Kamilla. 1995. "Israel Condemned for Torture by Shaking." BMJ 311 (7016): 1323. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7016.1323a. ↩

  7. Pelleg-Sryck, Tamar. 2011. "The Mysteries of Administrative Detention." In Threat: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israel, edited by Abeer Baker and Anat Matar. Pluto Press. ↩

  8. Baum, Andrew, and Laura M. Davidson. 1985. "A Suggested Framework for Studying Factors That Contribute to Trauma in Disaster." Disasters and Mental Health: Selected Contemporary Perspectives, 29--39. ↩

  9. Sutker, Patricia B., Z. Harry Galina, Jeffrey A. West, and Albert N. Allain. 1990. "Trauma-Induced Weight Loss and Cognitive Deficits Among Former Prisoners of War." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 58 (3): 323--28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.58.3.323. ↩

  10. Sutker, Patricia B., Franlynn Bugg, and Albert N. Allain. 1991. "Psychometric Prediction of PTSD Among POW Survivors." Psychological Assessment: A Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 3 (1): 105--10. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.3.1.105. ↩

  11. Rajoob, Awad. 2024. "Palestinian Dies in Israeli Prison Under Torture: Rights Groups." Anadolu Ajansı. ↩

  12. Francis, Sahar. 2017. "Gendered Violence in Israeli Detention." Journal of Palestine Studies 46 (4): 46--61. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2017.46.4.46. ↩↩

  13. Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain. Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press. ↩↩↩↩↩↩

  14. Addameer. 2018. "Rama Al-Ja'abees." In Addameer. Https://www.addameer.org/prisoner/rama-al-jaabees. ↩