Gaza's Certified Torturer

It was quiet by the time I reached Gaza. The shooting had ended. The only thing I had to worry about were mosquitoes buzzing into my hotel room through a bullet-hole in the glass window.

The fighting centered around two Fatah strongholds, the Preventive Security Compound, and a modern building known as “The Ship”, the intelligence wing of forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas. When Hamas took command of The Ship, they removed crates of documents that they said conclusively proved that their Fatah rivals were working with the Israelis and the CIA against the Palestinians. Well, so far, the only thing that's surfaced are sex tapes that the intelligence service had allegedly taken of their own Fatah officials frolicking with hookers. It was to be used as blackmail, or as a souvenir of wild nights in Gaza. Who knows?

So we moved on to the Preventive Security compound, an array of low buildings surrounded by a huge wall, in the center of Gaza. Our Hamas guard took us first to the dungeon, the most dreaded place in Gaza. Our guide pointed to a hook in the corridor's ceiling. “They would hang people from that and beat them, so everyone in the cells could hear the screams and think… ‘I'm next'”. The cell walls were scratched with graffiti, lovingly rendered pictures of guns and grenades, as if they could be magically conjured up by the inmates to take revenge against their jailers. There were a few hearts, one poem to a mother and a line: “They have shamed us, burnt our bodies. I am alone with my cup of tears.”

I asked the guard what sort of tortures they practiced, and he told me things that are best not repeated in a family blog.

Afterwards, I went upstairs to the interrogators' offices. The floor was awash with papers. One caught my eye. It was a certificate, issued by the United Nations Office of Human Rights to Lt Maghrebi. Apparently, the good lieutenant had learnt everything the UN had to teach him about the decent treatment of prisoners -–and then he went down to the dungeon and did the complete opposite. I came away thoroughly depressed. Do any of these fine humanitarian efforts by the UN and other agencies make a difference? I'm not so sure, anymore. And, after what happened in Abu Ghraib, I'm not so sure we're all that fundamentally different from the Lt Maghrebis of Gaza.

by Tim McGirk/Gaza