Palestinian journalist recounts horror of post-October 7 imprisonment
Amid Israel's ongoing military campaign in Gaza and a crackdown across the West Bank, Palestinian journalist Lama Khater offers a stark personal account of what she calls a transformation of Israel’s prison system — from confinement to complete isolation and psychological warfare.
Driving the news: Lama Khater was arrested on October 26, 2023 — less than three weeks after the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood — and held in Damon Prison, the primary Israeli facility for Palestinian women deemed “security threats.”
She had been imprisoned there once before in 2018–2019, but says her second incarceration was of a completely different nature.
“Everything changed after October 7,” she writes, describing the experience as descending “into an abyss.”
Inside the void: After the war began, Israel imposed a total communication blackout inside its prisons for Palestinians.
Letters, phone calls, and visits were banned. Even writing materials like pens and paper were forbidden.
“The mask was ripped away,” Khater says, accusing Israel of dropping any pretense of human rights or legal norms.
The backstory: Khater, a widely-read columnist and mother of five, had previously been interrogated by Israeli intelligence in 2018.
She recounts being told: “You could carry out a martyrdom operation on paper, and that wouldn’t be reason enough to arrest you.”
Despite this, she was jailed again — this time for several weeks without charge, and released only as part of a prisoner exchange deal in November 2023.
Yes, but: Even after release, Khater says Israeli officers explicitly warned her not to resume writing.
“You are forbidden from writing even a single letter anywhere after your release, or we will arrest you again and double your sentence,” she quotes one Shin Bet officer as saying.
Her husband was also detained for eight months following her arrest — a tactic she views as part of Israel’s broader campaign of collective punishment.
The bigger picture: Khater’s experience is emblematic of what human rights organizations have called a sharp deterioration in conditions for Palestinian detainees since the war began.
Reports of arbitrary detention, torture, and denial of legal rights have increased across Israeli prisons.
Female prisoners, in particular, face heightened restrictions and total isolation under emergency wartime orders.
The intrigue: Despite threats to silence her, Khater published her reflections — risking re-arrest.
She suggests that the act of writing itself remains a form of resistance.
“Perhaps I would still be languishing in their prison… if it weren’t for that ‘Freedom’ deal,” she writes, naming both her defiance and her fragility in the same breath.