Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar, who is also a human rights and feminist activist, has described her time behind bars in an interview with Al Jazeera Arabic after being released from Israeli prison in the first prisoner exchange at the weekend.

Jarrar, a leader of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was jailed since December 26, 2023. She was moved in August to solitary confinement at Israel’s Ramla Prison, where she said she was kept in a cell measuring two metres by 1.5m.

Jarrar said there was no ventilation inside the cramped cell, where temperatures got up to 45 degrees Celsius. Water was usually cut off, she added.

During her first week in isolation, she was not allowed out of the cell at all while her meals were “deliberately delayed”, she said, describing treatment by the guards as harsh.