He returned from the dead twice..Freed prisoner Saad Azzam tells his story to Al Jazeera Net | news

After the young man left his home with his friends and cousins, they were exposed to Israeli sniper fire in the Zaytoun neighborhood. Some were martyred and the rest were wounded. Only Saad and his friend survived the massacre, before the occupation soldiers were able to capture him and take him to an unknown destination.

Saad said – in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Net after his release – that after his arrest he moved between Israeli detention centers, where he was subjected to “brutal and inhuman torture,” as he described it.

He added that the occupation soldiers used police dogs against him, and fired gas and rubber bullets at him inside the cell, and the food provided to them was “below the standard of human beings,” noting that many civilian detainees “were subjected to the same fate.”

Azzam’s family did not know Saad’s fate after his disappearance in northern Gaza, as they initially thought that he had been martyred during the bombing, and his neighbors and friends mourned him after there was no news of him completely.

After weeks of searching and waiting, a lawyer was able to inform the family that Saad was alive and detained in an Israeli prison, and from that time they began the legal follow-up journey in the hope of knowing the details of his situation.

Saad says that the occupation army did not allow him to meet his lawyer except on rare occasions, and during those few meetings he learned that the people of Gaza were facing famine and food shortages, which increased his concern for his family, especially his father, who suffers from a physical disability.

He added, “I was experiencing double anxiety, not only from torture and hunger, but also from my fear for my family abroad.”

The family continued to live in a state of anticipation and anxiety for many months, until they received the news that Saad’s name was included in the list of those released in the recent prisoner exchange deal, so the initial shock turned into unexpected joy.

Saad, who emerged from captivity with a weak body and sunken features, confirms that despite what he went through, he will not leave his land and will not give up his right to “a decent life on his soil.”

Saad’s release came within the framework of the “Flood of the Free” deal that the Palestinian resistance concluded with the Israeli occupation, with Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediation, and included the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners with high sentences and life sentences, in exchange for the resistance’s release of the remaining Israeli prisoners it held in Gaza.