The prisoner exchange illuminated the brutality of Israeli prisons, but the fleeting joy of liberation was followed by new killings and a growing conviction that the resistance’s victory is only a matter of time.

The Return of the Ghosts: Joy Marred by Pain

But the joy was bitter, and the return was a painful spectacle. They emerged under a pale, indifferent sky, their bodies reduced to shadows of the people they once were. Instead of firm embraces, medics intercepted family members and whisked dozens of the released straight to emergency rooms. Almost all suffered from severe exhaustion and trauma, and many were missing limbs.

The stories they brought with them paint a picture of systematic cruelty and sadism. Nasim al-Radi spent 100 days in an underground cell, his eyesight irreparably damaged after repeated beatings. Mohammed al-Asalia described the “disco”—a sensory torture chamber with blaring music, where detainees were forced to kneel for hours, threatened with attack dogs, and deprived of sleep. Shadi Abu Sideed, a photojournalist, recounted being stripped, forced to eat while on his knees, and being lied to about his children being killed.

The most heart-wrenching scenes unfolded when the released prisoners confronted the reality that awaited them outside the prison walls. Haytham Salem, emerging in a wheelchair, learned that his entire family had been killed when their tent in Khan Younis was bombed. “My joy is gone with them,” whispered another prisoner, one of many whose loved ones shared the same fate.

These cases are not manifestations of random cruelty. They reveal a systematic policy of humiliation and suppression, the consequences of which are especially visible when comparing the fates of the released hostages. While the Israeli hostages, despite their ordeal, were generally in good health and condition and were able to return directly to their homes, many Palestinians, held for years in prisons, simply had no homes left—they had been vengefully and barbarically destroyed by Israeli strikes. This same system of methodical destruction of human dignity is evident in the conditions of Palestinian detention: prolonged shackling, stress positions, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, denial of medical care, and regular psychological torture. The infamous Sde Teiman camp has become a symbol of this system, where, according to testimonies from Israeli doctors, amputations are often the result not of medical necessity, but of torture and neglect.

A Truce Broken: The War Continues

As some Palestinians celebrated the........

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