For 38-year-old Palestinian academic Mahmoud al-Najjar, the Italian scholarship he had fought so hard to win was supposed to be a second chance at life. After losing his entire immediate family — his father, older brother, wife and all four of his children — in an Israeli bombardment of his Jabalia home in October 2024, al-Najjar had buried his grief to finish a master’s degree in international economics and publish research. Securing a place at Rome Tor Vergata University, with all the required applications, document certifications and interviews behind him, and official Israeli travel clearance already in hand, he saw the opportunity as the first step to rebuild after unspeakable loss.
That promise of a new beginning was shattered in early June at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing, where Israeli forces detained al-Najjar, interrogated him, and cut off all contact with the outside world. His traveling companions, part of a group trip coordinated by the Italian embassy, were eventually allowed to proceed, and later shared the news of his arrest with his family. For al-Najjar’s loved ones, the shock of the news was compounded by the unorthodox way they learned of his disappearance: through social media, with no official notification from Israeli authorities.
“After we said goodbye to Mahmoud and felt happiness that he was starting a new journey, we were shocked to read the news of his arrest across social media platforms,” Mahmoud’s 28-year-old youngest brother Attia al-Najjar told Middle East Eye. “It was very harsh to find out about his arrest and disappearance while browsing social media, without receiving any official notification.”
After days of outreach, Attia finally connected with the family of a fellow traveler who witnessed the detention. The witness, who was also interrogated before being released, confirmed he saw Israeli forces take Mahmoud into custody. The al-Najjar family has since been left in agonizing uncertainty: Israeli authorities have disclosed no information about Mahmoud’s whereabouts, health, or legal status. A single confirmation came from the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, which verified Mahmoud was being held in Ashkelon Prison with a ban on visitor access through June 15. But after that date passed, no human rights organization has been granted access to check on his condition.
The family’s anxiety has been amplified by existing trauma: Attia’s mother has suffered severe health complications from the ongoing stress, compounded by the 2024 bombardment that killed multiple family members, and the fact that two more of Attia’s brothers are already being held in Israeli prisons following an arrest during a military operation in the family’s displacement camp during the war. Attempts by Middle East Eye to contact the witness family were unsuccessful, as they declined interview requests out of fear for their safety and their son’s future abroad.
Mahmoud’s detention is far from an isolated incident, according to human rights advocates and testimonies collected from Gaza travelers. Since the partial reopening of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings under the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire agreement, hundreds of students have attempted to travel abroad to resume their studies or take up academic opportunities, but widespread accounts of arbitrary detention, prolonged interrogation, physical abuse and humiliation have gone largely unreported, silenced by fear of retaliation.
Mohammed Ahmed, a Gaza student who spoke to MEE under a pseudonym after successfully crossing to Europe to resume his studies, said that most students who have faced abuse refuse to speak out even anonymously. Ahmed himself had faced threats over his work as a journalist during the war, but passed security screening and received his travel permit, and ultimately crossed without incident. That luck did not extend to a colleague with a similar name who traveled shortly after him for the same scholarship program.
“I was shocked when my colleague told me that he was interrogated by the Israeli army and questioned about journalistic work that I had done while I was in Gaza,” Ahmed said. “Despite telling them that he does not work as a journalist and has a different specialism, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, abused him and humiliated him, simply because of the similarity of our names, before allowing him to leave.”
Ahmed added, “Many students have gone through this humiliating experience, but fear for their lives and their families drives them to silence.”
Lina al-Tawil, director of the Palestinian Center for the Defence of Prisoners, told MEE her organization has collected dozens of similar reports from travelers leaving Gaza — including students, medical patients, and their companions — documenting hours of arbitrary detention, intrusive interrogation, and in some cases, complete denial of exit permission, even for travelers who had already received official clearance.
“We received direct testimonies from travelers or their families about being subjected to detention and security interrogations, which included questions about places of residence, relatives, movements inside the Strip, affiliations, and details with no direct relevance to travel or treatment,” al-Tawil said. While the organization cannot release a precise number of affected people due to limited access during ongoing conflict, al-Tawil confirmed that “the cases are recurrent and not isolated.”
Testimonies collected by the center align with longstanding human rights warnings that Israeli authorities are using border crossing approvals as a pretext to detain and abuse Palestinians. Common abuses documented include handcuffing, blindfolding, and public humiliation, with intrusive questions about family members’ whereabouts, political affiliations, and connections that have no connection to travel eligibility.
Abuse is not limited to Palestinians leaving Gaza: travelers returning to the Strip face identical mistreatment at Israeli checkpoints. Abdel Rahim Abu Toaima, a 39-year-old Gaza resident who traveled to Egypt in 2025 for his son’s open-heart surgery, spoke to MEE about his ordeal after being forced to undergo emergency knee surgery for a ruptured tendon before returning home.
When Abu Toaima’s bus arrived at the Rafah checkpoint, he was called in for interrogation. After he repeatedly denied knowing the individuals Israeli soldiers asked about, he was beaten and humiliated. Despite informing soldiers of his recent knee surgery, they forced him to stand for two hours in extreme heat without a seat, stripped him naked, forced him to remove his surgical bandage, spat on him, and called him degrading slurs. When he asked for water, his request was denied.
“After slapping and punching me, the army forced me to strip off all my clothes without respecting my privacy, especially in the presence of female soldiers,” Abu Toaima said. “They also forced me to unwrap the bandage from my knee, even though I could not bend my back. They spat in my face, called me the vilest names, and forced me to stand for two hours in intense heat. Whenever I told them I was tired and I could not stand, they insulted me more.”
After hours of abuse, soldiers finally allowed Abu Toaima to enter Gaza, but confiscated his phone and other electronics. When he opened his suitcase back at his displacement tent in western Khan Younis, he discovered his and his son’s medication and most of their clothing had been stolen. Left without a phone in a Gaza market where replacement devices cost exorbitant sums out of reach for most residents, Abu Toaima now suffers from persistent swelling and bruising to his knee that requires ongoing treatment at Nasser Medical Hospital.
“I left Gaza with my injured son, and I returned with a knee injury that has not yet healed, and a harsh, unexpected interrogation experience from whose pain I will never recover,” he said.
According to Gaza’s government media office, of the 19,600 people who applied to exit Gaza through Rafah after its partial reopening, only around 7,000 — most of them critically ill patients — have been allowed to travel through after security screening. No official data exists for the number of people exiting through Karem Abu Salem, and only around 1,500 people have been allowed to re-enter Gaza through Rafah amid strict movement restrictions. For the al-Najjar family, outreach to the Red Cross and prisoner rights organization Addameer has yielded no new information about Mahmoud’s fate, leaving them trapped in limbo after every other loss they have endured.
“We never expected this to happen, especially since he had obtained travel clearance from the Israeli side,” Attia al-Najjar said.