A Harrowing Detention in Gaza
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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In the days following the October 7th Hamas attack and then Israel's bombing and ground defense of in Gaza, I've been in close contact with a young Palestinian poet named Mossab Abutoa. We've published a couple of essays and a poem by Mossab

and there's more to come. Recently on the Radio Hour, he described his family's plight, first leaving his neighborhood in Gaza City for a nearby refugee camp. I remember that two days before the escalation, we bought some pita. It is sitting in my fridge in Beit Lahya. I decide to return home, but not to tell my wife or mother, because they would tell me not to go. The only people in the street are walking in the opposite direction.

carrying clothes and blankets and food. It is frightening not to see any local children playing marbles or football. Since the war began, almost two million Gazans have been forced from their homes, nearly 85% of the population. The Gaza Strip is about the size of Las Vegas, but much more densely packed and most Gazans have no way of escape.

Mossab's youngest child was born while Mossab was studying in the United States, and the boy has an American passport. The U.S. State Department has been working to secure the exit of American citizens and their families in Gaza through the border with Egypt.

So about a month ago, Mossab Abutoa and his family headed to the border crossing.

I went outside and I was just looking for a taxi, but I didn't find any. So I found a boy, maybe 15 or 16 years old, on a donkey cart. And I called out to him and said, hey, can you take us to the checkpoint? So there are two streets. One is close to the sea on the western part of Gaza. And then there is the Salah al-Din street on the eastern part.

We were told that this is a safe passage. So we went on the donkey cart and we started moving. And then there was another guy with his mother on a wheelchair. They joined us. So we split the fare. There were just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people walking.

And a few people were just riding in a car or a donkey car. I mean, it's very hard for you to just hold your child and just walk. And many of them were holding a white flag. There was an Israeli soldier with a megaphone talking to us in Arabic. And there were some Israeli soldiers pointing their guns at us while we are walking. So I'm 31 years old. And November 19th, it was the first time in my life

I see an Israeli soldier. I see an Israeli tank. I see an Israeli rifle, which is, I think, very strange. You have been under bombardment. You have been living under siege and occupation. And you haven't seen any soldier in your life, but you are bombed from the sky. You are bombed by tanks. You do not see the people, the soldiers who are killing you and your family and who bomb your houses, who...

kill you at the beaches. And I was myself, I was wounded when I was 16 years old in 2009. And I didn't see the soldier who fired at me and the people around me. And the Israeli soldier with the megaphone started to call out for people, not by their names. He said, look, don't show me your ID, just look my way. So I kept holding my American passport.

So for me, in my case, he said, the young man with the black backpack, he said, and who is holding a red-haired boy? Put the boy down and throw your bags and come. I didn't believe my eyes. I was looking at myself and my wife, who is just a few feet in front of me and my children. And then I kept walking in their direction with my boy.

But then he said, no, just put the boy down and come. And then I dropped my son because there were just Israeli soldiers pointing their guns at us. So I dropped the boy and he started crying. He tried to follow me, but my wife ran his way to pick him up. So I joined the line of about, I think, 80 people or so.

I remained on my knees and they continued calling out for people. And then all of a sudden, maybe half an hour after that, I heard my name, my full name, Musab Mustafa Hassan Abu Toha. I just looked, I mean, I looked around, I mean, how did they know my name? I mean, I didn't show them my Palestinian ID. And then there was another Israeli jeep and the three soldiers.

Two were pointing their guns at us, and one in the middle with the megaphone. And they started talking, your name, your ID number. And then they said, undress. I mean, it was rainy that day. It was windy. It was very cold. So I took off my clothes, except for my boxer shorts. I stopped at that. And then he said, take off your boxer shorts. And then he shouted, now, do it. And then I took off my boxer shorts, and...

I became naked for the first time in my life outside my house. More humiliating when they ordered us to turn around. So they wanted to see every inch of our bodies.

The soldier said, oh, how many IDs do you have? There was my credit card, my debit card, my UNRWA employee card. UN Refugee Agency card, yes. Yes. So when the soldier saw my UNRWA card, he said in Arabic, he said, UNRWA? I said in Arabic, yes, I am a teacher. He said, shut the fuck up, you son of a bitch.

And you're scared, you're terrified, or you're calm? No, I was scared. I told him, I just came back from America 10 days before what happened. I have a master's degree from Syracuse. He said, oh, Syracuse. And then I told him about my time at Harvard, about my teaching at Syracuse, and also at Honorable School. And he said, telling his other colleagues, oh, he speaks English very well.

And he said, Musab, you are a Hamas activist. I said, what? I mean, I've been living in America for during the past four years. And he said, no, we have some Hamas members telling us that you are a Hamas member. I said, I think they are lying. I mean, do you have, I asked him, do you have any proof? Do you have any photograph, any satellite photograph showing me involved with Hamas or maybe Hamas?

showing me at the border or carrying a gun or whatever, just show me any sign. I'm not involved with any political party at all. So when I told him, can you show me any proof? And he then slapped me in the face. He said, I give you a proof, you give me a proof. So that's when I started to feel more terrorized. I mean,

How can I give you a proof that I'm not Hamas? On the contrary, you should show me a proof that I am Hamas. I started hearing female soldiers' voices and I felt some comfort. Oh, maybe these soldiers, these female soldiers would be maybe sympathetic to us, etc. That's what I thought. And then all of a sudden someone kicked me in my stomach and I threw myself away.

And I went out of breath for about three seconds. And I was in pain. As I raised my face, I got another kick from maybe the same soldier or another one in my face. And I kept saying, someone please talk to me. Someone please talk to me. But no one gave me any attention.

So I lied on a bed for about half an hour. Then a soldier came and he checked my... I didn't tell you about me and every other detainee given a number. So I think I still remember the number. It was 10-10-67-150.

And there was also another number on my pant, I mean, written by a marker in blue. And then he took me inside the facility, the interrogation facility. And I was brought to a room, a very small room. There was a chair. They took off, they removed the blindfold. And then they sat me on the chair. And then someone entered the room.

And he said, marhaba, hi. So he started to talk to me in Arabic. Hi, how are you? I said, I'm very sad. That's what I said. I'm extremely sad. Yeah, extremely. I'm extremely sad. I'm speaking with Mossab Abutowa, a contributor to The New Yorker. More in a moment.

I'm Maria Konnikova. And I'm Nate Silver. And our new podcast, Risky Business, is a show about making better decisions. We're both journalists whom we light as poker players, and that's the lens we're going to use to approach this entire show. We're going to be discussing everything from high-stakes poker to personal questions. Like whether I should call a plumber or fix my shower myself. And of course, we'll be talking about the election, too. Listen to Risky Business wherever you get your podcasts.

The soldiers interrogated Mossab Abutoa for hours. Eventually, one of them admitted they'd made a mistake. The next morning, Mossab was dropped back at the checkpoint after more than 48 hours in detention. Now, it's not clear why the border forces detained him. Whether somebody made a false accusation or if some surveillance system gave the Israelis bad information, even Mossab doesn't know.

Mossad made it with his family into Egypt and he was staying with friends in Cairo when I reached him last. Do you think that Sinwar, the head of Hamas, made a terrible mistake by planning and executing what took place on October 7th? I mean, what I hear from the start of, from the beginning of this is

is that Hamas' goal was to execute the Gaza command who were at the border with Gaza. So that was the only target for them. But then they just saw that it was an easy task, and then they continued to go ahead.

more and more into Israel and kill other soldiers and civilians. So that's what I think was the... In a sense, you think they succeeded in a dark way beyond their wildest expectations. Yes, yes, that's what I hear. Look, that's what I hear from regular people and some people maybe who are maybe fans of Hamas who hear things from other people. I can't imagine, and tell me if I'm wrong, I can't imagine that this war...

this cycle of violence, which is so much greater than anything we've seen in years and years, is going to lead us to a good place anytime soon. What do you think is possible for these two people to live together, side by side, in animosity? What is the future here that you see for all the people you love and know in Gaza and for the people in Israel right over the wall? Well, I think Gazans...

are facing a lot of issues. I mean, if you ask a young Gazan my age or younger or older, they wouldn't be talking about the greater issues. They would just talk about, you know, about getting a job, getting married, building their own flat. Feeding their children. Feeding their children, traveling abroad, etc. I mean, they wouldn't think about Palestine or the Nakba right now, the catastrophe of 1948. They are not right now thinking about returning to Jaffa or Haifa or Akka.

I mean, they are just thinking about the moment. But I think in Gaza, even a child who is six or three or four years old is no longer a child. They are not living their childhood. They are not children. They are not learning how to speak English, how to draw. They are just learning how to survive.

Many of my friends, many of my friends who are now 32 or 33, who have never left Gaza. Unfortunately, Israel continues to devastate us, to deprive us of basic things. I mean, we don't have an airport or a seaport. And in one of my dreams, I still have dreams of seeing the refugee camp from above when I'm on a plane.

Even the ID cards that we have are issued by the Israelis. So my name, my birth, my place of birth is written in Arabic and Hebrew. And many people do not know that. So we are linked to Israel in many ways. And Palestinians have been trying to build their own state. Israel, as we know, has been refusing to grant the Palestinians a state of their own.

They continue to build settlements in the West Bank and build their own roads for security reasons, they say. But I mean, no one cares about our own security as Palestinians. Of course, there is a lot of things to blame on the Palestinian side. We are divided. We don't have leadership, you know, to communicate on our behalf. So there is a lot of corruption in Palestine, in Gaza, in

some people are extremists, just like in Israel, there are some other people who are extremists, etc. I think the Israelis need to see us as equivalent, as victims, as people who need to live on their own land. They need to build their future. But this future cannot be built on a land that is covered with blood and bones. So I hope, I hope that

Palestinians would live in Palestine, in peace. That's maybe the start. Finally, Mossad, you're known as a poet. You're also known as a librarian. You put together the Edward Said Library in Gaza. What's been the fate of that library and of those books? Unfortunately, I have...

not the slightest knowledge of the reality on the ground about the two branches of the Edward Said Library that I founded. The first one I opened in 2017, the second in 2019. I think they do not exist right now. And there is a third library that I would like to mention, which is my own home library. Our house was

bombed by the Israeli warplanes. And I really, really miss some of the books that were signed by my fellow poets and novelists in America. There is a big, big loss, but this cannot be compared to the loss of my friends and fellow poets. And there's something that I need to say, which is,

I've been in Egypt for five days and I don't have any news about my parents. My brother Hamza, who has three children and whose wife is pregnant, and this month is hair month. And I don't know about, I don't know anything about my other three sisters. Two of them are with my parents and my brother in North Gaza. Each one has three children. So I don't have if they are alive or not.

Do you want me to close by reading a poem to my mother? I do. Nothing would please me more except knowing that they are safe, and I hope you know soon. So I wrote this poem to my mother. To my mother, do you still lie on your mattress reading from the Holy Quran to calm you down? Do you still use your reading glasses or have the F-16s and the smoke of their bombs blinded your small eyes? Do you still drink your morning coffee with dad?

Or have you run out of cooking gas? Do you still know how to make my favorite cake? Last month was my 31st birthday. You promised to make my birthday cake on the rubble of our bombed house. I tell you many times, it is no longer a house. You glare at me, and I leave our room at the Onarwa school shelter in the Jabalia camp. I need you, mother. You are my shelter when I am scared, when I feel I am about to die. Are you still alive?

Mosab Abu-Tor reading the poem To My Mother. You can read more of his work at newyorker.com. He wanted us to play this song by Marcel Khalifa called My Mother. It's one of his favorites.

You can read all of our coverage about the war in Gaza and the October 7th attacks in Israel at newyorker.com. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbess of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell.

This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell, with guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Decat. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.

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