A Gazan man holds his sister in a shack for 10 years

In the rear corner of a two-storey house west of Gaza City, a thin girl with a pale face has lain for ten years, held by force in a shack after her eldest brother imposed house arrest on her and cut her off from the outside world following his seizure of her inheritance (a plot of land and gold), so that she would not reveal his secret.

The discovery of the case of the girl (A.B.) was a shock to the Palestinian police and to her neighbours, who learned of her situation after she had grown old inside the family prison, a shack in which neither birds nor animals would accept to live.

The foul smell coming from the shack disgusted the police officers after they raided the place, which is more like a rubbish container depot, where they found (A.B.), forty-five years old, lying under a collapsing roof, covering her face with a red sheet with a wooden plank lying over her and weighing on her body.

Meanwhile they summoned her eldest brother, accused of holding her, from inside the elegant concrete house of several storeys where he and his family live.

Next to the eldest brother's house lives another brother of hers, who had previously assaulted and beaten her several times and used her wealth to buy himself a private car, and who was aware of what his eldest brother had done, which places him under responsibility.

After the neighbours had passed round the girl's tragic story, Al-Resalah Net set out to establish the truth and went to the Sheikh Radwan police station to examine the circumstances of the crime committed against the girl (A.B.), who spent a quarter of her life in detention.

Major Bassam Al-Qouqa, director of the Sheikh Radwan police station, recounted the details of the case: "At the start I received information from a friend saying that he knew of someone holding his sister behind the house for about 10 years, so I asked him to bring him in so that I could examine the circumstances of the case."

He added: "Of course this person came and told us about the circumstances in full and told us that there is a man among their neighbours in the Sheikh Radwan area who has been holding his sister for years because of the inheritance and the land in which she has a large share, and he told us that the girl had been engaged and was in good condition and had no psychological problems at all."

The director of the Sheikh Radwan police station went on: "This matter made us feel we had to move and verify this case, so we carried out the official procedures and obtained a decision from the public prosecution to search the house and investigate the circumstances of the case. We obtained the decision immediately and brought the prosecutor to search the house."

He continued: "In the early morning hours of the next day, the patrol made up of the police, the public prosecution and the investigations department went to the house in question and we knocked on the door. A man in his fifties, her accused brother, opened the door and we showed him the search warrant, and we immediately discovered the girl's place, which was in an extremely wretched state."

Al-Qouqa describes the place as a pen for animals or poultry, full of rubbish and wooden planks, in addition to a dilapidated corrugated iron roof through which rain comes in whenever it falls, while the floor consisted of two wooden pallets with a foam mattress on top with no cover.

"And when you look inside this shack, whose area is no more than two metres, you find rubbish and plastic trays surrounding it in addition to water bottles, which makes you wonder how this poor woman lived in this place," Al-Qouqa recounts.

He went on: "The girl has become close to madness after all these years, and when we approached her she did not answer and did not say a single word; rather out of fear she would cover her face and curl in on herself to the point that her knees reached her neck, while her hair was long and matted since there is no one to care for her."

Al-Qouqa added: "We immediately made contact with her married sisters, three of them, in order to learn more about the circumstances and so that they could help us get the victim out, and we called a special ambulance to take her to hospital, and everyone connected with the case, namely her brothers, was taken into custody for investigation."

The investigations

Inside the interrogation room at the Sheikh Radwan police station, the eldest brother gave his statement with a hardened heart, showing no sign of remorse for the crime he had committed against his younger sister: "I am not afraid and I have done nothing wrong." But he confessed to his crime against his sister after an argument with the investigators.

He confessed that he and his younger brother had taken their sister's right, noting that the second brother had stolen her gold and sold it to buy himself a car with the proceeds, while he had broken off her engagement to her fiancé, who later emigrated to a European country.

The director of the Sheikh Radwan police station confirms to Al-Resalah that the investigations showed the man prevented anyone from visiting her, particularly her married sisters, who knew what had happened to her, while one of her sisters stated during the investigation that she had thought the victim was living in the storerooms of the house.

While the investigations were under way, the perpetrator's daughter, who works as a lawyer, came to the Sheikh Radwan police station, and it became clear that she is among those accused in the case, after she confirmed that she lives in the same house. This led the station director to obtain a decision from the prosecution to question her, but she tried to defend her father by casting the accusations on her uncle and her aunts, who do not ask after her.

As for the victim's neighbours, they confirmed to Al-Resalah that they knew this girl previously, when she was in good health and had no psychological illnesses or problems.

One of the neighbours who knows her and knows her family says: "The girl was normal and suffered from nothing, and she was engaged to one of the returnees at the beginning of the Authority, but her brothers ruined her engagement and annulled the contract, which led her fiancé, who grieved over her, to emigrate."

At the psychiatric hospital

The correspondent of Al-Resalah Net went to the psychiatric hospital in the Nasr area of Gaza to meet the victim, whose appearance was different from what it had been in the place where she was held, since her hair had been cut and tidied. But her thin body still bore the image of the pain of ten years of detention in a place not fit for animals to live in.

The poor girl is still silent, but her eyes, in which fear still creeps, tell everyone who sees her of the harshness of family and brothers for the sake of obtaining money.

The doctor treating the patient confirms that she suffers from several psychological illnesses accumulated over several years as a result of being exposed to shocks and distressing situations, and he refused to speak in detail about her case until the investigations are complete, confirming that she is now undergoing courses of treatment in order to bring her out of the state she has been through.

Among the most notable things she was subjected to were the annulment of her engagement at the hands of her eldest brother, in addition to being assaulted and beaten several times, the theft of the gold she owned, and being thrown into a shack not fit for animals for ten whole years.

Where will she go?

On the victim's fate, Al-Qouqa, director of the Sheikh Radwan station, confirmed that the girl will not be returned to live with the brother who wronged her, confirming that he has been in touch with charitable people and with Al-Wafa hospital to arrange permanent residence for her at that hospital.

Al-Qouqa noted that he is now looking for charitable people to care for her in terms of special food, clothing and treatment, explaining that he has been in touch with some officials who have promised that she will be cared for and looked after.

By Ayman Al-Rifati