Basim Khandakji describes conditions in Israeli prisons and his journey to writing despite the challenges.

The night Basim Khandakji’s novel won the 2024 “Arabic Booker Prize”, Israeli prison guards stormed his cell, assaulted him, bound his hands and feet, and threatened him.

The 42-year-old was then placed in Ofer Prison’s solitary confinement for 12 days.

It was retaliation, he believes, for embarrassing the Israeli prison system, managing to publish a book under the noses of guards, drawing attention to himself and the conditions he faced.

Now he is out of Israeli prison after serving 21 years of three life sentences.

“I still feel like I’m dreaming, and I’m terrified I might wake up and find myself back in a cell,” Khandakji said.

After his release, he remains unable to return home to his family in Nablus. Exiled from his homeland by Israel, he now waits in Egypt as his family fights to reach him.

‘We saw new horrors’

As happy as he is about escaping “the cemetery of the living” in Israeli prisons, Khandakji is still trying to process the horrors that he saw there and his sadness at leaving other prisoners behind.

He was convicted in 2004 of being part of a “military cell” and being involved in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, a crime he says he was forced to confess to.

“The lawyer told me I had to sign a confession … so that three young men could be spared life