Why don’t you just die? ‘Life’ in an Israeli jail post Oct 7th 2023
JVL Introduction
Nasser Abu Srour was jailed for life by Israel in 1993. Here he writes to convey how things immediately changed for prisoners after October 7th 2023. These changes made conditions significantly worse not least in terms of violence, brutality, torture as well as inadequate food, little to no healthcare or treatment and increasing brutality, no more family visits, drastic overcrowding along with petty restrictions on speaking loudly, praying and disabled prisoners left without their wheelchairs.
He writes: “For 31 years I had endured a grinding, if unchanging routine in various Israeli jails. Every day felt like a repeat of the last, no matter where I found myself. Now, everything utterly changed. It was no longer possible to predict what might happen. Every hour brought a thousand possibilities, all bad.”
Much to his surprise he was released in a prisoner swap in 2025; but released into a painful exile which left him shocked to see what had been done to Gaza, He struggles with this and from the results of his long and dreadful incarceration and so is compelled to write: “… to confess my desire to stop apologising to Gaza and to the Palestinian prisoners for every breath I take, for every thread of light that touches my face, and for all the space that has opened up to me.”
This article was originally published by Equator on Wed 20 May 2026. Read the original here.
‘Why Don’t You Just Die?’
Surviving torture and brutality inside Israel’s prisons
(Translated from Arabic by Luke Leafgren)
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Important that JVL is republishing reports from the brilliant new online magazine Equator. I hope that, like the even more recent Zeteo UK, it will flourish.