Wadi Yasul is a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It is located between the neighborhoods of Abu Tur and Silwan and is adjacent to the Peace Forest. According to OCHA figures, close to 500 people live in the neighborhood. The Jerusalem Municipality issued demolition orders for all the neighborhood homes so all the families there are facing the threat of expulsion. In late April, the city already demolished two of the houses and displaced two of the families.
The residents of Wadi Yasul built it adjacent to a forest, also located on privately owned land that was expropriated from its Palestinian owners in 1970. In 1977, the Jerusalem Municipality zoned the forest and the area where Wadi Yasul was later established as a green space, where construction is prohibited.
In 2004, the neighborhood’s residents submitted a detailed plan to the District Planning and Building Committee for retroactive authorization of their homes. The committee rejected the plan in 2008, citing incompatibility with the Jerusalem 2000 Outline Plan, which states that the area where the neighborhood was built must remain a green space.
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A street in Wadi Yasul. On the left, a tent erected on the ruins of the Burqan's home. Photo: by'Amer 'Aruri, B'Tselem, 19 May 2019
At the same time, the municipality and the JNF (Jewish National Fund) – the body in charge of managing the forest – gave their approval to settler organization El-Ad to move forward with plans for group campgrounds, including building the longest recreational zipline in Israel. Some of the facilities have already been built in the forest, without building permits. While the city did issue demolition orders against them, it has refrained from following through.
In contrast, over the last decade, the city has filed indictments with the Court of Local Affairs against all Wadi Yasul homeowners. The court then issued demolition orders for all of the homes and imposed heavy fines, fining each family tens of thousands of shekels. Three of the families appealed these decisions with the District Court. The appeals were dismissed in April on the grounds that “there are no clear and near planning prospects” for the approval of a plan that would see the appellants’ homes, or other homes in the neighborhood, approved. An appeal the families filed with the Supreme Court was also rejected. In late April, 47 other families filed a motion with the District Court seeking an interim injunction staying execution of the demolition orders. The court’s decision is still pending. Consequently, all of the homes in the neighborhood are still under immediate threat of demolition.
Ever since 1967, planning policy in Jerusalem has been geared toward establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic majority in the city. Under this policy, it is nearly impossible to obtain a building permit in Palestinian neighborhoods. The outline plans the city has prepared for these neighborhoods are largely aimed at restricting and limiting building opportunities in Palestinian neighborhoods. One way the plans do so is by designating vast areas as open green spaces, thereby barring Palestinians from building there. The resulting housing shortage forces Palestinian residents to build without permits. At the turn of the millennium, the city estimated that about 20,000 housing units had been built without a permit in East Jerusalem. This estimate was made before the Separation Barrier cut off Kafr Aqab and Shu’fat Refugee Camp from the city. Since that time, many high-rises have been built in those areas.
The justices who heard the appeals that residents filed against the demolition orders issued for their homes chose to follow in the footsteps of all previous Israeli courts. They chose to ignore this policy which has been applied openly for more than fifty years. Instead, they focused solely on the question of whether or not the residents had building permits. District Court Judge Chana Miriam Lomp held that, “the residents have no one to blame but themselves,” as they had chosen to build without a permit and did not wait for planning conditions to change. Supreme Court Justice Yosef Elron refused to consider the residents’ arguments regarding planning discrimination and the fact that the Jerusalem Municipality deliberately avoids promoting a plan that would regulate construction in the area, saying they were not pertinent “to a criminal proceeding hearing.”
On 30 April 2019, the city demolished two homes and two storehouses in Wadi Yasul, leaving 11 people, 7 of them minors, homeless.
The home of Anas Burqan, one of the neighborhood’s first residents, was demolished by the city on 30 April 2019. During the demolition, police officers fired a sponge-tipped round at him – which did not penetrate his body – beat him and arrested him. Burqan, 31, a construction worker, is married and has four children, aged one to nine. He spoke about the demolition in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri on 8 May 2019:
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Anas Burqan. Photo by 'Amer 'Aruri, B'Tselem, 5 June 2019
My family is originally from the Old City. My father built the house in Wadi Yasul in 1992. It had two rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, and a corrugated metal roof. He built it on a plot of about 2.5 dunams [1 dunam = 1,000 square meters] he had bought. My father kept bees as a hobby, so he wanted to move to Wadi Yasul, where he could get fresh air and get away from the overcrowding in the city, enjoy the scenery and hear the birds chirp. In 1996, my brother Qusai built another home, next to the one my father built.
In the 1990s, there weren’t any other houses nearby, and people made fun of us for choosing to live in an isolated area that had no running water or electricity. But my father, who worked for the city as a street cleaner, managed to hook up the house to water and electricity, thanks to his contacts there. City officials told him he shouldn’t be concerned because the homes there were not causing any damage or compromising city projects.
After 1997, more people started moving into the neighborhood. As early as 1998, we tried promoting an outline plan for the neighborhood, so we could hook all the homes up to water, electricity and phone lines. The municipality refused to cooperate with us and rejected all our proposals, claiming the area was supposed to be a green zone.
When I got married in 2009, I stayed in this house with my wife and my parents. My siblings moved to Abu Tur.
In 2013, demolition orders were served to all the homeowners in the neighborhood, including me and Qusai. A city official called my brother and me in for a meeting where he said: “Any security-related incident connected to a neighborhood resident will speed the demolition of neighborhood homes.” We hired a lawyer who managed to delay the execution of the demolition orders for two years. In 2015, we got fines – I was fined 50,000 shekels and my brother 55,000. We’re still paying off the fines in installments of 500 shekels a month.
In late 2018, our lawyer told us proceedings with the city had reached a dead end. In March 2019, the District Court dismissed the appeal my brother and I had filed against the demolition orders, and on 17 April 2019, the city demolished storage houses and huts belonging to our neighbors, but not the homes themselves. My brother and I realized that the moment of truth had come and that our houses would soon be demolished. Our families then lived in a state of fear and anxiety. We couldn’t enjoy anything we ate. We couldn’t sleep. We were in a state of despair and hopelessness.
The day before Passover, a police car arrived and the officers gave my wife and my brother’s wife the demolition orders. Our lawyer said the demolition wouldn’t be carried out during Passover, nor – God willing – during the month of Ramadan that came just after it. My brother and I took turns keeping watch at night, because the bulldozers could come at any time of the day or night.
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Ruins of the Burqan home. Photo by 'Amer 'Aruri, B'Tselem, 30 April 2019
In the meantime, my wife and I packed our clothes and other items in plastic bags, preparing for the bulldozers. We started looking for rentals and were shocked by prices outside of Silwan and Abu Tur. Places that could suit my family – large enough, with reasonable infrastructure and safe for the children, not on a major road – were available only in Beit Hanina, Shu’fat or Beit Safafa. Rent in these neighborhoods is easily 1,000 dollars a month. Silwan and Abu Tur don’t have large apartments that are safe and suitable for children. Even if I did find a suitable place in Silwan, the landlord would likely not want to rent to us because we have four children and people don’t want noise.
Once Passover was over, we got very tense. On 30 April 2019, I kept watch until 4:00 A.M., and then went to bed. Two hours later, my brother Mahdi woke me up and said [Israeli] police forces were on the move around the neighborhood and that he could hear a bulldozer. I woke up my wife and children right away. Everyone was in shock. They started crying when I told them our house was about to be demolished.
My brothers and I started moving things out of the two houses and called friends and relatives to come help us take out the furniture. I was in the bedroom, disassembling furniture with a screwdriver, when a special police force commander came in and said: “Good morning. We’ve come to demolish the house.” I answered: “It’s a shitty morning,” and went back to work with my back to him. Just then, I heard a something that sounded like a shot and felt a hard object hit me in the waist on my left side. I think that the commander, or the police officer who was with him shot me (with a sponge-tipped round).
I fell to the floor, writhing in pain. While I was lying there, armed police forces attacked me. They dragged me outside the house and beat me all over with the butts of their guns. They did in full view of my wife and children and all my relatives and friends. I felt a heavy blow above my right eye. The beating lasted about five minutes. They stepped on my head, hard, and also kicked my backside hard.
I heard members of the police forces arguing among themselves and saying: “Should we take him to the patrol car or leave him here to watch his house getting demolished?” In the end, they took me to the Oz Police Station in Jabal al-Mukabber with my hands tied in front with cable ties. I thought about my wife and children. I knew the demolition was coming, but the beating and the humiliation in front of my whole family was not something I anticipated. I tried to keep calm so they would release me and I could go back to my family. The interrogator accused me of attempting to assault a police officer with a sharp object, a screwdriver. I said: “I was using a screwdriver to take apart the bedroom furniture. The officer is the one who invaded my house and shot me with a sponge-tipped round.” After the interrogation, I was transferred to the detention facility at the Russian Compound police station.
I was taken to someone who was a nurse or a doctor, I don’t know which. He took pictures of the bruises on my body and gave me paracetamol [over-the-counter pain reliever]. Then, they took me to a detention cell. I was preoccupied with the pain and with thoughts about my wife and children: Where are they now? Where are they going to spend their first night away from home? I was deeply depressed, so I wouldn’t eat and I just drank water.
Very early the next morning, I was taken from the detention cell to the Magistrates Court. The District Attorney’s Office asked to remand me for five days, but the judge decided to remand me only until Friday. I went back to the Russian Compound feeling sad and miserable. I demanded to see a doctor, and they took me back to the room with the man who I don’t know whether he was a nurse or a doctor. He gave me paracetamol and then I fainted and collapsed on the floor because I hadn’t eaten anything since I was arrested. I woke up in the same room, hooked up to an IV drip. The next day, at 7:15 P.M., they took me to court. I saw my daughter Butul there. She ran to me, and the judge yelled: “How can you let the child come in and see her father with his hands and feet in restraints?” I said to the judge: “She saw me being beaten, and our house demolished. Seeing me like this is not what’s going to scar and traumatize her.”
On 2 May 2019, Magistrates Court Judge Elazar Bialin dismissed the motion made by the police to remand Anas Burqan to custody for five more days and remove him to Anata for two weeks. The judge ordered his release on bail and sent him to house arrest at the home of his brother Mahdi in Abu Tur until 6 May 2019. During the demolition of Anas Burqan’s home, all the furniture owned by the family was destroyed. Anas’s family and his brother Qusai’s family rented apartments in the Abu Tur neighborhood.
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Suhaib Burkan the day after the incident. Behind him, the ruins of the family home. Photo by 'Amer 'Aruri, B'Tselem, 1 May 2019
Suhayb Burqan, 20, Anas Burqan’s brother, was at the home during the assault. He spoke about it in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher 'Amer ‘Aruri on 8 May 2019:
On the night of the demolition, I was also at Anas’s home and I started moving things outside. While Anas was taking apart furniture in the bedroom with a screwdriver, two police officers in black uniforms came in. One of them said good morning to us, and then said the house was going to be demolished today. Anas answered: “It’s a shitty morning”. Then Anas turned around and continued taking the furniture apart, with his back to the two officers. Then, while I was carrying things out of the house, I saw one of the special forces men fire a single sponge-tipped round at Anas from close range - without Anas even going near him. I heard Anas screaming, saying: “I’ve been shot!”.
Then dozens of special forces stormed the house. They assaulted Anas. They beat him and kicked his arms and legs. They beat him with the butts of their guns too. Then they took him out of the house. They had everyone leave the house and go out into the yard. Anyone who wouldn’t leave was beaten. I tried to shield my head with my left arm, and then they hit it with the butt of a gun.
I saw Anas getting beaten and two other guys who were bleeding. The got everyone away from the house to make way for the bulldozer to come in and demolish it. At that point, an ambulance came and took me to al-Maqassed Hospital. They treated my arm and bandaged it. Then we went back to the neighborhood. The bulldozers had gone.
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Ruins of the Burqan home. Photo by 'Amer 'Aruri, B'Tselem, 30 April 2019
Amidst the ongoing illegal and lethal Israeli-American offensive against Iran, Israel is expanding its ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, throwing Palestinian families into the streets.Initial reports from the ground: Police forces have sealed off the entire neighborhood and are preventing anyone includes journalists from entering. Preliminary reports indicate violence and the arrest of family members. At this very moment, settlers brought to evacuate the houses are actively throwing the families' belongings out of the windows.The eviction of 11 families, which is taking place at this very moment, marks the beginning of a massive displacement wave: approximately 2,200 people in Silwan are facing an imminent threat of forced displacement - 150 families (1,500 individuals) in al-Bustan and 90 families (700 individuals) in Baten al-Hawa.The forcible displacement follows the Israeli Supreme Court's decision to dismiss the appeals of 20 Palestinian families from Baten al-Hawa, leaving 136 individuals at immediate risk of losing their homes.This is the reality of systematic, institutionalized violence and a clear manifestation of an Israeli policy aimed at engineering the demographic balance and "Judaizing" the neighborhood by exploiting discriminatory laws. These measures are designed to expand Israeli presence and control over one of the most politically and religiously sensitive areas in the region, serving as a crucial component of the broader ethnic cleansing currently unfolding across the West Bank.
The Silwan area, located south of the Old City of Jerusalem and annexed to the city’s municipal boundaries, is home to some 20,000 Palestinian residents. Its unique location next to the Old City, near al-Aqsa Mosque for Palestinians and the Temple Mount for Jews, puts it at the forefront of the Israeli regime’s campaign of dispossession and displacement in Jerusalem, as part of a broader plan to cleanse the area of its Palestinian residents and Judaize the neighborhoods surrounding the Old City. This plan is actualized through several racist mechanisms, including discriminatory legislation such as the Absentee Property Law and various municipal by-laws; the deliberate absence of detailed planning schemes for construction in Palestinian neighborhoods; and designation of land as national parks or other national projects in order to justify the dispossession. In Silwan, joint efforts by settler organizations and state authorities to Judaize the area are focused on three projects currently underway: excavation of the so-called Herodian Street, demolition of homes in al-Bustan neighborhood, and eviction of residents from Baten al-Hawa.These efforts place the residents of Silwan under very real threat of eviction from their homes and dispossession of their land. Over the past two years, evictions in the neighborhoods of Baten al-Hawa and Wadi Hilwa, where the City of David tourist site is located, together with home demolitions in al-Bustan, have left hundreds of residents homeless.In Baten al-Hawa, from October 2015 to April 2026, 33 families were evicted – a total of 77 people, 37 of them children. Fifteen of them were evicted in March 2026. Now, another 53 families are facing expulsion – a total of 237 people, 130 of them children.Many Palestinian families challenged eviction orders in court, but their petitions were dismissed in a series of rulings issued in late 2025, ordering 157 neighborhood residents to vacate their homes. In several cases, the evicted families were even ordered to pay the settlers tens of thousands of shekels in compensation. As of February 2026, 28 families from Baten al‑Hawa face immediate risk of eviction after the court denied them leave to appeal, ruling legal proceedings in their cases had been exhausted. Several additional court cases concerning dozens of neighborhood families are still pending before the Magistrates’ Court or awaiting decisions on appeals to the Supreme Court.Meanwhile, in the nearby neighborhood of al-Bustan, 48 homes were demolished from October 2023 to April 2026 following demolition orders issued by the Jerusalem Municipality. Fourteen of them were demolished in March-April 2026, with 56 residents evicted, 20 of them children. The remaining 123 families are in danger of expulsion – a total of 1,450 people, 900 of them children. The municipality has issued demolition orders for 17 of the homes.In 2010, the Jerusalem Municipality under Mayor Nir Barkat proposed establishing a tourist park named King’s Garden on al-Bustan land, as a direct extension of the Jerusalem Walls National Park and the City of David archaeological site. The latter has been operated since the 1990s by Elad, a settler organization that openly works to Judaize Silwan. In early February 2026, four bulldozers working in the service of the Jerusalem Municipality entered al-Bustan and demolished walls, fences, storage structures, gates and commercial properties belonging to neighborhood residents, without prior notice. The demolition was justified through the manipulative use of a municipal by-law ostensibly intended to allow the “removal of obstacles from the street.” The targeted structures, however, had been standing for years on land that was never designated as a street. Despite a District Court order to halt the demolition, the bulldozers continued destroying buildings in the neighborhood.To prevent these demolitions and evictions, the international community must urgently and effectively intervene to demand an end to the Israeli regime’s criminal policy of forcible transfer.The goal: full Judaization of SilwanImmediately after Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, it annexed some 70,000 of the West Bank in violation of international law, and brought some of them under Jerusalem’s municipal jurisdiction. In the years that followed, the city’s socio-geographical composition was reengineered, and the state allocated about one third of the annexed territory to building Israeli settlements such as Armon Hanatziv, Gilo, East Talpiot, Ramot, Neve Ya’akov, Pisgat Ze’ev, Ramat Shlomo, French Hill, Har Homa and Givat Hamatos. The official purpose of these settlements was to secure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem and cement Jewish territorial contiguity. Another tool used by the authorities to Judaize the city has been the establishment of Jewish enclaves in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods, such as the Shimon Hatzadik compound on land belonging to Sheikh Jarrah, or the so-called renewed Jewish Quarter within the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The actions pursued by Israel in Baten al-Hawa and Wadi Hilwa in Silwan follow the same path.Silwan lies within what is also known as the Holy Basin, which includes the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah, a‑Tur (Mount of Olives), Wadi al‑Joz, Ras al‑‘Amud and Jabal al‑Mukabber. Due to its geographic location, Silwan is rich in archaeological and historical sites, which Israel uses to justify planning and zoning policies that restrict Palestinian development and promote Israeli control in the area. Declaring land as a national park, archaeological site or nature reserve serves, in practice, as a tool for dispossessing Palestinian residents of their land. Moreover, the development of these areas as heritage sites is carried out in close cooperation with far-right NGOs, particularly Ateret Cohanim and Elad. This joint effort serves a clear political objective: creating a Jewish strip of territory that severs the contiguity of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and cuts them off from the rest of the West Bank.The takeover and expulsion mechanism: Baten al-HawaThe expulsion of Baten al‑Hawa’s residents is the first time an entire Palestinian community in East Jerusalem has been forcibly displaced since 1967. It relies primarily on the 1950 Absentee Property Law, which applies to the property of Palestinians expelled from their homes during the 1948 Nakba, and on the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law, which effectively allows only Jews to claim title to property owned before 1948. Another route used by settler organizations to take over properties operates through the office of the Guardian General, a statutory entity formed when the state was established and empowered to administer Jewish trusts (‘hekdesh’) in East Jerusalem. These are properties owned by Jewish trusts before 1948 and dedicated to public purposes, which are now managed via a trustee. The use of a trust to claim title to property provides legal justification under Israeli law for the expulsion of Palestinian residents from their homes. In 2001, the Jerusalem District Court approved the Guardian General’s decision to transfer management of the Benvenisti Trust to members of the Ateret Cohanim organization. In 2002, the land where the buildings housing most of the families facing displacement was transferred to this trust by the Guardian General, and a further three-dunam plot, housing 10 more Palestinian families, was sold to the trust in 2005.Pursuant to the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, in combination with the fact that the Guardian General facilitates Jewish takeover of homes previously owned by Jews, Palestinian residents who lawfully purchased these homes are being stripped of their property and left defenseless.Backed by private security guards paid for by the Israeli Ministry of Housing to the tune of hundreds of millions of shekels per year, Jewish settlers in the neighborhood harass Palestinian residents, violently confront them, and frequently get Palestinians arrested by the police on various pretexts. In addition, as settlers moved into the neighborhood, Israel Police and Border Police presence increased dramatically. Officers also use violence against Palestinians, issue threats, detain minors and disrupt daily life. And so, even before they are physically expelled from their homes, Baten al‑Hawa’s residents suffer relentless abuse, fully backed by Israeli state institutions and security forces, which makes their lives unbearable and is intended to push them to leave “voluntarily.” Palestinian residents also suffer from gross, ongoing neglect in terms of public infrastructure and services that should be provided by the Jerusalem Municipality: many streets are unpaved, garbage is not collected and left to pile up in the streets, and street lighting is limited.Gross discrimination between Jews and Palestinians under Israel’s apartheid regime is not confined to discriminatory legislation. It is also manifested in planning, budgeting and service provision. While Palestinian residents of Silwan endure deliberate neglect underpinned by systematic state violence, settlers in the Jewish enclaves in the neighborhood, such as the Yemenite Village or Kfar Hashiloah within Baten al‑Hawa, or the City of David in Wadi Hilwa, enjoy around the clock security and modern services and infrastructure, including paved access routes and wider, better‑lit streets, financed in part by taxpayer money.These families are being forcibly displaced in violation of international law with the full backing of Israel’s Supreme Court, which, while accepting the Baten al‑Hawa families’ claim that they purchased their homes lawfully, ruled that the settlers’ property rights prevail,In Silwan, as in other Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Palestinian villages across the West Bank, the Israeli regime uses every tool at its disposal to dispossess Palestinians of their land. The goal of removing Palestinians from their homes is pursued out in the open, through legislation manifesting the core features of Israel’s apartheid regime, via the court system, and in cooperation with settler organizations, with matching efforts to make Palestinians’ lives unbearable through systematic neglect and violence perpetrated by both official and unofficial actors.This is the reality of systematic, institutionalized violence in which Palestinian residents of Jerusalem live daily under Israel’s apartheid regime, stripped of their most basic rights. Confronting this reality requires urgent and immediate intervention by members of the international community.
On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 5:30 P.M., about 10 Israel Police officers arrived in the neighborhood of Wadi Qadum in East Jerusalem and grabbed five Palestinian residents between the ages of 12 and 15. They crowded all five into a police car and held them there for about an hour. At around 6:30, the teens were taken to the police station on Salah a-Din Street. There, they were made to sit on chairs facing a wall in a very cold, air-conditioned room and forbidden to talk to each other. At around 7:00 P.M., a lawyer arrived and explained their rights to them, and only then did the police allow them to use the bathroom. Meanwhile, the parents of four of the boys arrived at the station, but the officers refused to let them in, and they had no choice but to wait for their sons outside for hours. Each of the teeens was interrogated alone, without an adult present on his behalf, for about an hour or an hour and a half. After some of them refused to sign a statement in Hebrew and insisted they hadn’t thrown stones, the interrogators reportedly humiliated them, swore at them, and in some instances resorted to physical violence. For example, one officer pulled 12-year-old Mustafa a-Salaymeh’s chair out from under him, making him fall. An interrogator hit Ayham a-Salaymeh, also 12 years old, on the neck, while Mu'taz a-Salaymeh, 14, was hit on the neck and face by an interrogator who also pulled his hair. When the interrogations were over, the teens were kept at the station and given no explanation of what lay ahead. At around 11:00 P.M., the officers gave them slices of bread. Around midnight, after Nawaf a-Salaymeh, the father of Ayham and Ahmad, posted NIS 5,000 (~USD 1,400) in bail for each of the five boys, they were all sent home for five days’ house arrest. About 10 minutes after Nawaf and his sons got home, a police officer called and demanded that Ahmad return to the station on the pretext that his interrogation had not been recorded. Ahmad went back to the station with his father and was again interrogated alone, exhausted and scared, for about an hour and a half. This time, he signed the statement. When he asked what he was signing, the interrogator replied it was none of his business. Five teens were abducted from a street without being told what they were suspected of or where they were being taken. They were interrogated at a police station, under threats and pressure, while their parents were not notified or allowed in the room, and were held for more than six hours. For the first two hours, they were forbidden to go to the bathroom and given nothing to drink. All the while, the parents of four boys were not allowed into the station and forced to wait outside until their sons were released. Arresting children in this way is part of Israel's overall oppressive policy in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank. This case is no exception, but part of Israel's systemic treatment of Palestinian minors, including refusal to uphold the special protections granted minors by international law, which are also granted minors under Israeli law. Instead, the Israeli law enforcement system treats Palestinian minors as part of a hostile population, all of whom – teenagers and adults alike – are presumed guilty unless proven otherwise, and employs extreme measures against them it would not dare use against other populations in Israel. The boys described what happened to them that evening in testimonies they gave to B'Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri on 22 January 2023: Muhammad a-Salaymeh (15): On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 5:30 in the afternoon, I was on my way home from visiting a friend in the neighborhood of Ras al-‘Amud with some other friends – Ahmad and Ayham, who are brothers, and Mustafa and Mu'taz. We were going down the stairs that lead from Ras al-‘Amud to our neighborhood, Wadi Qadum, when suddenly we saw about 10 people from the occupation forces and they arrested us. I didn't understand what was going on, and it was very confusing. One of the officers put his arm around my neck, which hurt a lot, and pulled me by force into the car. We all sat there one on top of the other, and it was very crowded. First, they took us to Ras al-‘Amud and we waited there in the car, near the police station. I asked the officer for water, but he ignored me. We sat in the car for about an hour, and then they took us to the police station on Salah a-Din. There, they put us in a room, made us sit on chairs facing a wall and told us not to talk to each other. A police officer threatened us that whoever spoke would be beaten, so I kept silent. After about half an hour, a lawyer came and explained our rights to us. After he left, we were taken to the bathroom one by one. After I got back from the bathroom, I saw that Mu’taz and Mustafa were being taken away for interrogation. Then they also took me to an interrogation room. The interrogator asked me to write my name on an electronic screen, the kind you sign when you use a credit card. He also asked me to write the name of the lawyer who came earlier, and then he said: "You’re accused of throwing stones at a police car." I told him it wasn't me, and he said my friends had admitted to throwing the stones. I told him again that it wasn't true, and that we were just going home together, and that they couldn’t have admitted to something we didn't do. He swore at me and threatened that if I didn't sign the paper on the table, he’d hit me. I was afraid of him and signed the paper. I don't know what I signed, because it was in Hebrew. I sat in the interrogation room for about an hour, and then I was taken back to the room we were in before and sat on a chair. Some of my friends were there and some were still being interrogated. It was only around 11:00 P.M. that they gave us a piece of bread to eat. I was really hungry. About an hour later, we were let go and put under house arrest for five days. One of the parents posted my bail, which was NIS 5,000. Mu'taz a-Salaymeh (14): When they arrested us, I didn't exactly understand what was happening and where the police officers had come from. They grabbed us all by the neck. I almost choked when the officer wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me into a police car along with the others. They put us in the car one on top of the other. Two officers sat up front. When I told them in Arabic that my legs were hurting because of the way we were sitting, one of them said: “If you don’t shut up, I’ll chop your leg off.” From that moment on, I kept quiet. We drove to the police station in Ras al-‘Amud and waited there in the car for about an hour. We asked the officers for water, but they ignored us. My mouth was parched, I was so thirsty. Then we got to a police station on Salah a-Din Street. They put us in a very cold room with an air conditioner that was running on cooling. They made us each sit on a chair facing the wall and told us not to talk. When we asked the officer to turn the air conditioner off because we were shivering with cold, he refused. Over the next hour, we asked several times to use the bathroom, but they ignored us. Only after the lawyer who came to talk to us left, an officer took each of us separately to the bathroom. While he was taking me, he swore at me on the way and said obscene things about my mother and sister. They took Mustafa and me away separately for interrogation. In the interrogation, they showed me a video of people throwing stones. I told the interrogator I didn’t know who they were and that I hadn’t done anything. He shouted at me and said I was a liar. The whole time, I was afraid he would hit me. He kept swearing and once, after I shouted back at him: "Why are you cursing my mother?", he pulled my hair and punched me in the face and neck. I refused to sign the document. The interrogator said it was my statement, but it was in Hebrew so I refused to sign it. He laughed at me and said: "So don't sign, cross-eyes!” It was humiliating. After about an hour and a half of interrogation, I was taken back to the room. At around 11:00 P.M., they gave us some bread to eat. About an hour later, they let us go and put us under house arrest for five days, after posting NIS 5,000 bail each. Ayham a-Salaymeh (12): When we got to the police station at Salah a-Din, I asked to use the bathroom but the police officer refused to take me. Only when the lawyer arrived and I told him I had to go to the bathroom, did the officers take me there. Then they brought me back to the room. The lawyer was still there, and told me he’d being explaining to everyone that the interrogators had no right to hit us or swear at us. Then he left and the officers started taking each of us away separately for interrogation. In my interrogation, I was really scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. The interrogator showed me a video and asked if I was on it. I said I wasn’t, and he shouted at me and asked if those were my friends and brother. I said I didn't know who those people were, and then he hit me on the neck and said that if I admitted to throwing stones, they’d let me go home. I told him again I hadn’t done anything. He gave me a document in Hebrew to sign, without explaining what it said. I signed it, because I was afraid he’d hit me again. The whole time, the interrogator was yelling at me and banging his hand on the table. Ahmed a-Salaymeh (13): They put us in a room that was very cold, because the air conditioner was on cooling instead of heating. They made us sit on iron chairs facing the wall and wait. After a lawyer talked to us, they took me to the bathroom. On the way, the officer who was taking me there swore at me and cursed my mother and sister. Then they interrogated me and showed me a video of people throwing stones in Wadi Qadum. The interrogator said that if I admitted to throwing stones, I’d go home. But I told him I honestly hadn’t thrown stones. He cursed my mother, insulted me, showed me the video again and asked who it was throwing stones. I told him I didn't know, and then he picked a glass of water up from the table and threw it at me. It didn’t hit me. I refused to sign the statement and then the interrogator said I could go. When I was almost out the door, he kicked me in my backside. They let us all go late at night. My father took Ayham and me home, and after about 10 minutes the police called him and demanded he bring me back to the station. When we got there, I was interrogated alone again. The interrogator told me they hadn’t recorded the previous interrogation and that was why they’d brought me in again. He asked me the same questions about throwing stones, and again I denied it. I was really tired, and this time I signed the document in Hebrew. When I asked the interrogator what it said, he said it was none of my business. Nawaf a-Salaymeh (47), a father of six including Ayham and Ahmad: On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 6:00 P.M., a kid from the neighborhood told me he’d seen the occupation forces arresting my two sons and three other boys. I immediately called the Wadi Hilweh information center and they put me in touch with a lawyer. The lawyer made some inquiries and told me my children were being held at the police station on Salah a-Din. After about an hour, at around 7:00, I arrived at the station with some of the other boys’ parents, but the police officers wouldn’t let us in to see our children. We stood outside in the cold for about four hours. At around 11:00, an officer came out of the station and demanded I post NIS 5,000 in bail for every boy. At around midnight, they were released. They came out exhausted, freezing and hungry. A few minutes after I got back home with Ayham and Ahmad, the police called and demanded I bring Ahmad back to the station because they hadn’t recorded his interrogation. I took him to the station and they interrogated him alone. When he came out, about an hour later, he told me they’d asked again if he’d taken part in the stone-throwing.
