A Palestinian protester carries a placard bearing the portrait of Nasser Abu Srour in April 2015 during a demonstration in the West Bank town of Bilin. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images
A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war.
Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exiled to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.
Mr Abu Srour (56) recounted a sharp increase in the use of beatings and the deprivation of food and warmth after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
“The prison guards uniform changed, with a tag on the chest written on it the word ‘fighters’, or ‘warriors’, and they started acting like they were
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