On Friday, 24 January 2020, at around 2:00 P.M., a military jeep entered the village of Deir Nizam, located northwest of Ramallah. It stopped near the village’s old mosque and two soldiers got out, siezed A.T., a 15-year-old local, and put him in the jeep.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 27 January 2020, A .T. said:
“Two soldiers got out of the jeep, one who was sitting next to the driver and one who was in the back seat, and jumped me. One of them grabbed my arms from behind and shouted in Hebrew. I only understood the words “you throw stones”, which I know because kids use them when they play. I understood he was accusing me of throwing stones.
I was very scared, especially because it was quiet all around and there were no people on the street. I didn’t understand why they were arresting me and how they could accuse me of throwing stones. I started calling for help and for my parents. Some of the neighbors heard my cries, came out and tried to stop the soldiers.”
Several of A .T.’s relatives and other residents arrived and tried to convince the soldiers to release the boy, but the soldiers shouted at them and threw a stun grenade in their direction. A few minutes later, the jeep drove several meters down the road, with A .T. inside and residents still trying to get him released. One of the soldiers fired several live rounds in the air and immediately after that, fired directly at Bilal Tamimi, 26, a village resident who was passing through the area. The bullet hit Tamimi in the pelvis from behind and he was taken to al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah.
The soldiers immediately drove off, taking A .T. with them. They blindfolded the boy, tied his hands behind his back and took him to a military base, beating him on the way. No one bothered to inform his parents of his whereabouts for two hours. At the base, he was interrogated and threatened without the presence of his parents or of legal counsel . A .T. was finally released after six hours, in which the soldiers did not allow him to go to the bathroom or give him food or water.
For most Israelis and their political and military leaders, what happened in Deir Nizam is a trivial, routine matter. But what about the people who live under our control in Deir Nizam? How terrifying is the brutality with which this trivial routine plays out? How physically injurious? How emotionally scarring? A teen jumped on the street on a Friday afternoon; hours of interrogation while his family has no idea where he is; humiliating treatment during the interrogation; stun grenades and live fire; Bilal Tamimi injured; and the probability of the incident ending with fatalities, as is often the case – in other words, routine.
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Bilal Tamimi at the hospital. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 26 Jan. 2020
The shooting of Bilal Tamimi
Muhammad Tamimi, 58, a resident of Deir Nizam and father of nine, drove to the area of the mosque with three relatives after he heard soldiers were holding his nephew, A .T.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 26 January 2020, Tamimi said:
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Muhammad Tamimi. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 26 Jan. 2020
When we drove over to the soldiers to intervene and get them to release the kid, the commander shouted at us and ordered us to stop. After we stopped, he pounded on the windshield and ordered us out of the car. We got out, and then he told us to hand over our ID cards and phones. I told him in Hebrew: “We haven’t done anything. Why are you detaining us and asking for our IDs”? I refused to hand them over, but he started shouting at us. One of the soldiers threw a stun grenade to scare us. We backed away in the direction of a coffee shop a few dozen meters away, hoping things would calm down and they’d release the kid.
The soldiers and the jeep came towards us and other residents also tried to get them to release the boy, but no one dared go too close because the soldiers were very aggressive, especially the commander, who was shouting the whole time and being belligerent. He came very close to me and fired several live rounds in the air. He was so close that I could feel the shell casings flying at me. I was scared and backed away from him. Another soldier randomly fired stun grenades at residents who had come out of their homes to see what was going on.
All of a sudden, I saw the commander, who was a few meters away from me, point his rifle at my relative Bilal Tamimi, who was about 25 meters away from me. The commander fired a few bullets, even though people had already started dispersing and I hadn’t seen any stone-throwing that day. Bilal was hit by a bullet and fell over on the road.
After that, a commotion started. People started yelling at the soldiers, and some people from the village drove Bilal to hospital. The soldiers got back into their jeep straight away and drove off with the boy.
Bilal Tamimi, 26, a court clerk who lives in Ramallah, was visiting family in the village and had gone to buy drinks.
In a testimony he gave on 26 January 2020, he described what happened:
I heard the sound of stun grenades before I left the house, but I thought it was nothing out of the ordinary. I lived in the village until two months ago, and we’re used to it. Soldiers come in, chase stone-throwers and young kids, hurl stun grenades, fire teargas and sometimes live bullets, and then leave.
When I neared the mosque, I saw the soldiers were going crazy. I decided to climb the outside stairs of the house of some relatives of mine who live nearby, to hide from the soldiers and watch until things calmed down. Before I managed to get up the stairs, a soldier opened live fire. At first he fired a few bullets in the air, and then he aimed his rifle at me. I didn’t think he would hurt me because things were quiet. At least, I didn’t see any stone-throwing.
The soldiers were about 20-30 meters away from me. The soldier fired a few bullets, and one of them hit me in the left side of my pelvis just as I was turning towards the stairs. It felt like an electric shock. I felt nauseous and dizzy and scared. I started bleeding and fell on the road. I called for help and a few young guys picked me up and took me to a car that drove me to al-Istishari Hospital. On the way, they bandaged the wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. I was fully conscious and it hurt a lot. I was scared the injury was fatal and I would die. I prayed to God to have mercy on me.
At the hospital, Tamimi was X-rayed and underwent surgery to remove shrapnel from the bullet that hit him in the lower part of the pelvis from behind. He was discharged on 6 February 2020.
In a testimony he gave on 23 February 2020, he said:
I still have pain and feel pins and needles in my left leg. Because the nerve connection in the left hip was hit, it’s hard for me to walk much and I can’t climb stairs or drive. I use crutches sometimes and need my wife’s help to walk. The doctors have reassured me it should get better in a few months.
I haven’t worked since the injury and I’m scared I’ll lose my job. The situation has affected me emotionally. I feel depressed. I’m sick of being at home and I’m frustrated. I can’t stop worrying about the future. I don’t sleep well because of the anxiety. I’m in bad shape. Only God understands what I’m going through.
A .T.’s “interrogation”
After shooting Bilal Tamimi, the soldiers put 15-year-old A .T. in the back seat of the jeep and drove him, blindfolded and handcuffed, to a military base located several kilometers north of Deir Nizam.
In a testimony he gave on 27 January 2020, A.T. said:
During the drive, I told the soldier who was beside me that I hadn’t throw stones, but every time I spoke, he pushed my head down and hit me on the head or neck. At the entrance to the village, the soldiers met up with an army vehicle, a khanzira (Arabic nickname for “wolf” armored vehicle). They told the soldiers in the khanzira that they’d caught a stone-thrower and the other soldiers swore at me, calling me” bastard”, “son of a bitch” and things like that.
When we got to the base, a few kilometers north of the village, they took me out of the jeep and made me kneel on the ground, which was covered in gravel, with my face to the wall of a pre-fab. The gravel dug into my legs and knees and it hurt, but they didn’t let me move or get up.
After about half an hour, the soldiers took A .T., still blindfolded, into the pre-fab. A person sitting inside asked for his personal information and questioned him about other youths from the village
. After about 20 minutes, A .T. estimates, his blindfold was removed and an officer who came in interrogated him about throwing stones at the settlement of Halamish, showing him video footage of kids throwing stones at the settlement. A .T. denied participating.
In his testimony, he further recounted:
Another interrogator came in. I understood he was arguing with the first interrogator. Then he started interrogating me. He yelled in Arabic: “Don’t piss me off! Tell the truth. The guy in the picture is you. Don’t lie!” But it really wasn’t me in the video. I told him: “Why would I lie? I wasn’t even there”. Then he asked me about my friends. I told him I don’t have any. He asked about my classmates, and then he said: “So you don’t want to talk. I’ll bring you an interrogator who will make you talk, against your will”. Then he blindfolded me again and tightened the knot until I couldn’t see anything.
He made me sit on the floor and then they left. I got cold and started shivering. I asked to go to the bathroom, but they didn’t let me. They left me without food or drink.
I stayed like that for more than five hours. I was scared and shivering with cold. Every time I asked for something – water, food, to go to the bathroom – the answer was “Shut up, be quiet.” Soldiers kept coming in and out, and sometimes they called me “son of a bitch”.
After more than five hours, the soldiers took me to a jeep. I was still blindfolded. The jeep drove off, I don’t know where. Suddenly, they let me out near the entrance to a-Nabi Saleh. It was eight or nine in the evening. The soldiers handed me over to the head of the local council, who was waiting for me there with my father, and they took me home.
A .T.’s father, 52, heard Bilal Tamimi had been injured and went to hospital to check on him. Other residents there told him his son had been arrested.
In a testimony he gave on 5 February 2020, he recalled:
I was very worried and afraid for my son. I hear a lot about the military mistreating minors who are arrested or detained. I had terrible thoughts: Are they holding him in the shabah position [with his hands and feet bound to a chair] , in the cold? Did they beat him? Did they humiliate him?
The head of the council and a member of the village council who were at the hospital told me they had contacted the Palestinian DCO and human rights organizations right away, and were following up.
I started wandering through the hospital, stressed and confused. My wife, kids and other relatives called me from time to time to find out what was going on with A . After an hour or two, we were told by the Israeli or Palestinian DCO, I don’t remember exactly, that my son was fine. They said he was at a [military] camp and would be handed over at 8:00 P.M. They didn’t say where he was being held. I calmed down a little, but was still scared and worried.
At 8:00 P.M., the council head told me the military would let my son go near the a-Nabi Saleh gate. I went there immediately. I hugged him and was very happy he’d been released. He was physically fine and wasn’t suffering from anything, but he was frightened and freezing cold. The officer said they’d let him go even though they had security camera footage showing him throwing stones near the Halamish settlement fence and trying to break the camera. He said next time they would arrest him for anything he did.
We went home. Everyone was very happy, especially his mother, who was eagerly waiting for him and really wanted to make sure he was okay. Thank God, my son came home alive and well.
Ever since then, my son gets very scared when he sees soldiers or hears they’re in the village. He runs away or leaves the area to avoid running into them. If he’s home, he doesn’t go out until he makes sure they’re gone.
On Friday, 18 August 2023, at around 11:30 P.M., cousins Mahmoud (18) and Yihya (16) a-Nawaj’ah arrived at the Meitar checkpoint. They were traveling in a car belonging to a Palestinian citizen of Israel. The two were on their way back from Israel to their home in the community of al-Jawaya, which lies southeast of the town of Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. When they reached the checkpoint, Israeli soldiers had the driver and two passengers get out of the car and conducted body searches on them. The soldiers took their bags, cellphones, and a bracelet and ring Yihya was wearing. They also took 8,000 NIS (~2,100 USD) in cash, money the cousins had earned working and were carrying in their pockets. Next, the soldiers tied the hands of the three individuals behind their backs using plastic bags, covered their eyes with plastic bags, and placed them in a military jeep. When they asked where they were being taken, the soldiers told them they were going to the Beit Yatir checkpoint (a checkpoint near the Mezadot Yehuda military base). Once they arrived at the military base, the three were taken out of the jeep and seated on the ground. Throughout the night and until the following afternoon, the three remained on the ground, handcuffed and blindfolded. Even in the intense heat of the day, the soldiers denied them water, food and access to the bathroom. When they requested to sit in a more shaded area, the soldiers refused. They were also forbidden from contacting their families or a lawyer to inform them of their whereabouts. Later, the three were taken to a room in the military base where the plastic bags around their hands were replaced with zip ties – this time, in front of them – and the bags covering their eyes were replaced with cloth blindfolds. They were interrogated in Arabic and asked for their names, ages, how they entered Israel and what they were doing there. From there, they were taken to another military facility, where fingerprints were taken from all three while they remained handcuffed and blindfolded. The soldiers then separated the driver from Mahmoud and Yihya and later released him. Mahmoud and Yihya were put in a car and sat there for about half an hour. Then, after a short drive to the Beit ‘Einun roundabout on Route 60, which sits north of Hebron, the soldiers took them out of the car and told them that they were being released. Only after the two pleaded did the soldiers remove the handcuffs and blindfolds. They returned their cellphones and Yihya’s jewelry that had been taken during the arrest. When the cousins asked the soldiers about the money that was taken from them, the soldiers claimed it had been transferred to the police and then left. Mahmoud called his father, who came to pick them up and took them home after more than twenty hours without food or drink. The next day, Mahmoud and Yihya went to the Kiryat Arba police station to demand their money back, but the police officers referred them to the Border Police camp in the settlement of Telem. Upon arriving there, they were told to come back the next day. On 31 August 2023, the two contacted HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual to file a complaint on their behalf with the police demanding their money be returned. B’Tselem field researcher Basel al-‘Adrah collected testimonies from the two cousins. Mahmoud a-Nawaj’ah (18), a resident of a-Jawaya testified: Ever since I finished school, I’ve helped support my family. In June 2023, I started working in the town of ‘Araba, inside the Green Line. I didn’t have a work permit, so I crossed in illegally. After about a month, my 16-year-old cousin Yihya a-Nawaj’ah joined me. On 18 August 2023, we decided to go home and paid a Palestinian citizen of Israel to drive us. At around 11:30 P.M., we reached the Meitar checkpoint. The guard there stopped the car and asked to see IDs. The driver showed them his ID, and I told them I didn’t have mine with me. Yihya said he didn’t have one because he’s sixteen and hasn’t gotten one yet. The guard instructed us to get out of the car and asked the driver to park it in the lot next to the checkpoint. A few soldiers made us move away from the car, and another soldier searched the vehicle with an electronic device. Meanwhile, the soldiers told me to call my parents and ask them to send my ID number or a photo. I tried calling, but no one answered. Yihya, the driver and I got taken into a room at the checkpoint, where our photos were taken, and then our faces were identified. Afterward, we were taken to a small cell, got physically searched, and everything that was on us was taken: our cellphones, our bags with all our clothes, the 5,000 NIS (~1,300 USD) I made in all the months I’d worked, and 3,000 NIS (~780 USD) Yihya had made that was on him. Then our hands were tied behind our backs with plastic bags, and we were blindfolded with plastic bags too. All three of us were put in a black military jeep. I asked where they were taking us, and one of the soldiers said: “Mezadot Yehuda.” After about a ten-minute drive, at around 12:30 A.M., we were taken out of the vehicle and sat on the ground inside a military base. I could feel cars zooming by very close to us. It was really scary, and I was very worried about what would happen, especially since no one in our family knew we’d been detained. I asked the soldiers if I could try calling someone from my family again, but they refused. When we asked for water and food, they refused that too, didn’t give us anything, and ordered us to shut up and not talk to each other, either. We asked how much longer we’d stay on the floor like that, and one of the soldiers said we had a lot more time. We were there all night. The next morning, about an hour and a half after we heard the call to dawn prayer, it got very hot. We couldn’t take the heat of the sun anymore and asked the soldiers to move us somewhere with more shade, but they refused. Around noon, it had become completely unbearable, and we asked them again and again if we could move, but they said no each time. At some point, I managed to take the plastic bag off my eyes, but within seconds, soldiers came over to put it back on and yelled at me that I wasn’t allowed to take it off. We sat on the ground handcuffed and blindfolded for 15 hours straight. Then, the soldiers brought us into a room in the base. They took the plastic off our eyes and covered them again with cloth. They also tied our hands tightly with zip ties – this time in front. They sat us down on chairs. Suddenly, someone I hadn’t seen began talking to us. He said his name was Khaled, and he asked each of us questions in mediocre Arabic. He asked for my name, my age, where I worked and how I entered Israel. He asked Yihya and the driver the same questions. After that, the soldiers put us back in the jeep, drove for about forty minutes, took us out again, and brought us into a room again, where they took our fingerprints while we were still handcuffed and blindfolded. After that, they put me and Yihya in a civilian car. I don’t know where the soldiers took the driver. We waited in the car for about half an hour before it started moving. A while later, we got dropped off and told we could go. They hadn’t taken off our blindfolds or untied our hands. They only did it after we begged them, and then we realized we were at the Beit ‘Einun roundabout. One of the soldiers gave us back our cellphones. We asked about our money, and the soldier said it was with the police, and then the soldiers left. I managed to take a photo of their license plate. That was at about 5:30 or 6:00 P.M. I called my father, and he came to pick us up. We were exhausted. Later, I called the driver, and he told me he had been released and that his friends came to pick him up, but that the soldiers confiscated his car. The next day, Yihya and I went to the police station in Kiryat Arba to get our money back, but they said our case was being dealt with in the Telem base. We went there, and they told us to come back the next day. The following morning, the Kiryat Arba police called me, and the interpreter asked me to tell him what happened, and how much money it was. I told him and said I was planning on going to Telem the next day to pick up my money. He told me they’d be in touch, but that never happened. Yihya a-Nawaj’ah (16), from Yatta, said: I was looking for work over the summer in order to have some pocket money for my last year of high school. My cousin, Mahmoud a-Nawaj’ah, got me a job where he works near ‘Araba in Israel, and I started working there on 15 July 2023. The first day of school was 20 August 2023, and I wanted some time to prepare, so we both left work on 18 August 2023. We left at around 9:30 P.M. with a Palestinian citizen of Israel who drove us for a fee, and at around 11:30 P.M., when we arrived at the Meitar checkpoint, the guard there detained us when he saw Mahmoud and I didn’t have IDs on us. The guy who was driving us showed the guard his ID, and the guard told Mahmoud and me to get out and the driver to park in the lot next to the checkpoint. The two of us got out of the car, and two soldiers led us through the lot. Then three more soldiers came, and one of them searched the car with an electronic device. The soldiers demanded to see IDs again, but we said we didn’t have them. They took the three of us to a room at the checkpoint, took our pictures in there, and then did a body search inside a small booth. They took our cellphones, and from me, they also took a bracelet and ring I was wearing, and the 3,000 NIS (~780 USD) I had made at work. They took Mahmoud’s 5,000 NIS (~1,300 USD), too. Then, the soldiers tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us with plastic bags. After that, the soldiers put us in a jeep and after a 10-minute ride, we were taken out and sat on the ground inside a military base. It was scary because I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t know what the soldiers were planning. I felt cars zooming right next to me. I asked the soldiers to go to the bathroom a few times, but they didn’t let me. They also didn’t give us water or food, and they forbade us from talking to each other. Mahmoud and I asked to call our family or a lawyer, but one of the soldiers kept saying the same word every time: “forbidden.” About an hour and a half after we heard the call to dawn prayer, when the sun was already up, we asked them to move us to the shade, but they refused. Around noon, we couldn’t stand the scorching heat anymore – we had been there for 15 hours straight – but they continued to refuse our request to move to a shadier spot. At some point, they moved all three of us to a room in the base and replaced the plastic blindfold with a cloth one and the plastic bags tying our hands with zip ties; they put them in front this time. One of the soldiers tied my hands really tight, and it hurt. Then, someone who said his name was Khaled asked the three of us some questions in mediocre Arabic. He asked how old we were, where we worked, and how we entered Israel. After that, they took the three of us out of the room and put us back in the jeep. After a forty-minute ride, we were brought into another room where they took our fingerprints – even though our hands were still tied and we still had blindfolds on. They then put just Mahmoud and me in a car, and we waited for about half an hour inside it. After a short ride, the soldiers dropped us off and told us we could go, but they didn’t take off the handcuffs and blindfolds. We asked them to take them off, but one of them said they weren’t allowed. We didn’t understand why he wanted to leave us like that in the middle of the road, so we persisted until, finally, one of them untied our hands and took off our blindfolds. I felt relieved. They also gave us back our phones, and they gave me my bracelet and ring. They didn’t return the money they took from us, and when we asked for it, the soldier told us that the police had it. After that, they drove off, and Mahmoud called his father, who came to pick us up. We were so hungry and tired, and we just wanted to sleep.
On Tuesday, 28 June 2022, at around 4:00 A.M., about 30 Israel Police officers and Israeli Security Agency (ISA) agents, some of them masked, arrived at the Rweidi family home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Several of them entered Majd’s (15) room, waking him in a fright. Majd’s father tried to reassure his son and told him they were police officers. When Majd replied to his father, “What am I supposed to do to them?” one of the officers forcefully pushed him, and Majd pushed him back. Other officers pounced on the teen, beat him and then took him into custody, barefoot and shirtless. The officers handcuffed Majd and continued beating him on the way to the Russian Compound detention facility in West Jerusalem. At the facility, police officers beat the teen until his lawyer arrived and photographed the bruises they left on his face and body. Majd was interrogated and accused of throwing stones at settler and police vehicles. At around 4:00 P.M., he was taken to the Magistrate's Court in Jerusalem, about 12 hours after being rousted out of bed, beaten and interrogated – and given no food or drink the entire time. The judge extended Majd’s arrest by two days, during which he was not interrogated but simply held in a cell. He was released on the afternoon of 30 June 2022, after his father signed a NIS 5,000 (~1,505 USD) bail guarantee, and was put under house arrest for seven days. This incident is not an exception but the rule for many Palestinian families in East Jerusalem. A long line of Israeli authorities are complicit in this violence and enable it. In this case, it was the police officers who came to the family’s home in the dead of night, woke the entire household and violently dragged 15-year-old Majd out of bed; the ISA agents who escorted them; the police officers who interrogated the teen after he was dragged from bed and repeatedly beaten; the guards who imprisoned him; and finally, the judge who approved the extension of his arrest — the purpose of which was unclear, as Majd was not interrogated again — and put him under house arrest without a judicial procedure that would allow him to defend himself. That is how Israeli authorities routinely run the lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, enjoying far-reaching powers with no accountability for their actions. B’Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri collected testimonies from the family. In his testimony, Majd a-Rweidi (15) recounted what happened to him that night and in custody: On Tuesday, 28 June 2022, at around 4:00 A.M., I woke up because I heard noises in the house. Suddenly, I saw some masked people in my room. One of them said to me in Arabic, “Get up and come with us.” I was terrified. My dad told me they were police, and I got nervous and started shouting. When I got out of bed, one of them pushed me and I pushed him back. The officers kicked everyone out of the room and started hitting me. They kicked and slapped me for a few minutes, and then they tied my hands behind my back and led me out of the house barefoot and shirtless. My mom handed them a shirt for me to wear, but they used it to cover my face. One of my brothers followed me and handed me shoes. They led me into a jeep and I put my shoes on. I couldn’t see anything because my face was covered with the shirt. During the ride they hit me again, in my face, head and neck. When the jeep stopped, they pulled me out of it violently. I almost fell flat on my face. Later, the lawyer told me I was in Room 4 of an interrogation facility near the Russian Compound. They made me sit in a kneeling position and kept on hitting me from time to time. They slapped me, kicked me and hit me all over my body with the butt of a gun or a rifle. I don’t know how long it lasted. At some point, the lawyer arrived and asked to take photos of the bruises the beating left on my face and body. The lawyer explained to me how the process of interrogation and arrest works. After he left, they took me to the bathroom and I washed my face. Then they took me into interrogation. There were two plainclothes interrogators in the room. I sat on a chair with my hands tied. The interrogators accused me of throwing stones at settler and police cars. I don’t know how long the interrogation lasted. It felt like two hours or so. I could barely talk because I was in such pain from the beatings. I was also very thirsty. I asked for water, but they didn’t give me anything to drink or eat. The interrogation was in Arabic, but they also told me to sign documents in Hebrew, which I can’t read. The interrogator said it was my testimony. I signed, and then they transferred me to a room that was basically a cage with bars. My hands were still tied. I was exhausted, thirsty and hungry, and my whole body ached. At around 4:00 P.M. I was taken to court, where I saw my dad and my brothers, Ahmad (21) and Samir (22). I couldn’t speak to them. The judge extended my arrest for two days, and I was taken back to the Russian Compound. I was taken to a doctor who gave me painkillers. Then they put me in a room with three other boys around my age. Even though I was hungry and there was bread and jam in the room, I fell asleep immediately because I was so exhausted. When I woke up, I ate one slice of bread and drank some juice. I had no appetite. I stayed in the room until Thursday at 5:00 P.M. I wasn’t interrogated again. My dad signed a 5,000 shekels bail guarantee, and I was put under house arrest for seven days. After I was released from the detention facility, I went with my dad and my brothers, Ahmad and Samir, to a clinic in ‘Ein a-Luza in Silwan, where I was x-rayed. The doctors said I had bruising in various parts of my body and dry blood marks on my left ear. Majd’s father, Muhammad a-Rweidi (49), described his son’s arrest and what happened afterwards: I heard loud knocking on the door. I got up with my wife, Islam (43). I asked who it was, and they said, “We’re from the police. Open up.” There were more than 30 officers there, some in plain clothes and some wearing black uniforms. Some of them were also masked. The whole family woke up except for Majd. There was an ISA officer with them and he asked for my children's names. I said I have four children: Rital (11), Majd (15), Ahmad (21) and Samir (22). He asked me where Majd was sleeping, and I told him he was in the room with his two brothers. He ordered me to take him to the room. Five police officers went into the room and the others spread out around the house. Majd woke up and was scared. I told him not to be afraid and that they were police. He replied, “What am I supposed to do to them?” When the ISA agent heard that, he pushed him hard, and then Majd pushed him back. Three Special Police Unit officers hit Majd, knocked him to the floor and kicked him. I yelled at them to stop and told them he was just a kid. My wife and Majd’s sister were standing in the doorway and saw what was happening. They started screaming and crying. Then about 15 more police officers came into the room and kicked me out. I heard Majd shouting in pain. A few minutes later, they brought him out, barefoot and without a shirt on. My wife tried to hand Majd a shirt to wear, but one of the officers took it and covered his head with it instead. Samir ran out after Majd and handed him shoes. As soon as the police left I called a lawyer, Muhammad Mahmoud, and told him what happened. He got back to me an hour later and said Majd was being held in Room 4 and had a hearing scheduled at the Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem at 11:00 A.M. Of course my wife, our kids and I didn’t go back to sleep after all that. We kept thinking about Majd and what was happening to him in detention. I was very worried about him. In general, I’m very worried about his future, because I’ve also been detained for different lengths of time since 1988 and I don’t want my son to experience that. I don’t want his future to be lost in prison. The lawyer called us later and told us the hearing was postponed until 5:00 P.M. I went to the court with Samir and Ahmad. When Majd was brought into the hall, I couldn't believe it was my son. His face looked completely different. He’d been severely beaten, and his face was swollen and bruised. The judge extended Majd’s arrest for two days, and he was released after I signed unpaid bail of 5,000 shekels. He was put under house arrest for seven days. As soon as he was released, we took him to a clinic in Silwan, where he was examined and given painkillers. Thank God he had no fractures, only bruises and various aches. We’re trying to give Majd the strength to deal with the beatings and the humiliation he went through. He’s doing better now, thank God.
On Monday, 28 March 2022, at around 7:00 P.M., a group of about eight Palestinian teens from the village of Ras Karkar, in Ramallah District, used lasers to provoke soldiers and Special Police Unit officers who were at the entrance to the village. The teens fled into the village and the forces chased them in a vehicle, capturing Ragheb Samhan (13), who has an intellectual disability. They assaulted him, tied his hands with pieces of cloth, blindfolded him and took him away on his own, without informing anyone. After about two hours, the officers brought Ragheb back to the entrance to the village and released him there, handcuffed and blindfolded. About half an hour later, some 15 soldiers and police officers arrived at Samhan’s house, where several family members and village residents had gathered to greet him. They arrested two of his relatives, Muhmmad Samhan (19) and Nader Nofal (18). They blindfolded the two young men, tied their hands behind their backs and drove them to a nearby military camp, interrogating them along the way. The forces held Samhan and Nofal in the vehicle for about two hours before transferring them to a trailer, where soldiers beat and kicked them and swore at them. After about five hours, at around 3:00 A.M., the two were released at the entrance to their village. They were summoned for an ISA interrogation a week later, after which they were released without charges. This was yet another routine incident in the life of a Palestinian family in the West Bank. Soldiers and police officers arrested a teen with an intellectual disability without even bothering to inform his parents. They held and interrogated him in an unknown place for two hours, without an adult acting on his behalf, and then arrested two members of his family, holding them for about five hours and abusing them. This is the unbearable ease with which Israel runs the lives of millions of people, almost never holding anyone accountable In a testimony he gave B'Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad, Muhammad Samhan (19), a resident of Ras Karkar, described how both he and his nephew Ragheb Samhan were arrested: On Monday, 28 March 2022, at around 7:00 P.M., I was at home near the a-Sadiq mosque in the village center. I looked out the window and saw two patrol vehicles enter the village – a regular military jeep and a white GMC, which I recognized as a Special Police Unit (SPU) vehicle. It looked like they were chasing children who’d been aiming laser beams at them at the entrance to the village, along Route 463, and run back into the village. I think there were about seven or eight children there. The vehicles stopped outside our house, and soldiers and police officers got out and chased the children among the houses. A few moments later, I heard a kid shout, "It wasn't me, it wasn't me!" Two officers led him towards the jeeps. They hit and kicked him and then tied his hands in front of his body and covered his eyes with a piece of cloth. The boy kept shouting. I didn’t recognize him. The officers didn't wait around. They immediately put him in the SPU car and both vehicles left the village. I went outside to find out who they'd arrested and was told it was Ragheb, my sister's son. He's 13 and has a mild intellectual disability. I immediately went over to my sister's house. I asked her husband, Tawfiq Samhan (35), where Ragheb was and he said he’d gone to get water from the grocery store. I told him it looked like the military had arrested Ragheb. We went out to search for him together. We got into my car and headed towards the Ni'lin Checkpoint to find out where they’d taken Ragheb. On the way, at the entrance to Ras Karkar, we saw a military patrol vehicle. We asked the soldiers where Ragheb was and explained that he’s a child with special needs. The officer said, "We arrested him because he pointed a green laser beam at us and threw stones." He demanded to see our IDs and a photo of Ragheb. We showed him the IDs but didn't have a photo, so I drove back and got one. We showed it to the officer, and he confirmed they were holding him. We got into a loud argument with him and started shouting. In the end, the soldiers gave us a number we could call to make inquiries, and left. Meanwhile, more people from the village heard the shouting and gathered there. We called the number the soldiers gave us, but no one answered. At around 9:30 P.M., we were still by the roadside when soldiers arrived with Ragheb and let him go. He still had a blindfold and zip ties on. When we saw him like that, we were furious. It was a very inhumane sight. The child was crying, and was scared and confused. We started swearing at the police, cursing their attitude and their inhumane behavior towards a boy with a disability. We cut the zip ties, took the blindfold off and took him home. Ragheb was unable talk and tell us what happened. He just kept repeating a few sentences, over and over: the police had asked him who was throwing stones and he’d told them he didn't know. We went back to my sister's house, and people from the village came to welcome Ragheb back. About half an hour later, I was standing outside the house with some people when about 15 soldiers arrived with an SPU officer, who immediately started swearing at us. Tawfiq heard the shouting and came outside. He swore back at the officer and told him that what they'd done to his son was inhumane. The officer ordered us to show him all the children who live in the house. We called Ragheb's brothers to come out: Yasser (10), Yusef (3) and 'Abdallah (1). The officer looked at them but still wouldn’t leave our family alone. Then he announced that I was under arrest along with my second sister’s son, Nader Nofal (18). They led us to the GMC vehicle, tied my hands behind my back with pieces of cloth and covered my eyes. After they put me inside, they also tied my legs. On the way, the officers asked me who'd been pointing a laser at the forces. I told them I didn't know. The vehicle stopped, and they kept asking me questions inside for half an hour. They didn't ask Nader anything. Then they took me out of the vehicle, and the officer put me on the phone with someone from the ISA who introduced himself as Abu Rami, the area coordinator. He told me he'd questioned me before, when I was arrested during the protests against the war in Gaza a year ago. I told him I didn't remember him. He accused me of pointing a laser at the soldiers. I told him I’d been at home and the soldiers had taken me from there. He suggested I collaborate, but I refused. Then he told me to come to him for questioning on Sunday at 9:30 A.M. After I talked with him they put me back in the vehicle, which drove off and then stopped again. I rubbed my head against the seat and managed to shift the blindfold. I saw that Nader and I were alone in the vehicle, inside a military camp. We stayed in the vehicle for about two hours and then some soldiers came, took us to a trailer and left us there, handcuffed and blindfolded. The soldiers turned on the air conditioning, and it was freezing. One of them asked me, "Are you Hamas or Fatah?" I said Fatah, and then he punched me in the stomach. I nearly choked. He cursed me and Fatah and Hamas. Some other soldiers brought in a loudspeaker and played a song loudly. One of the soldiers moved the speaker closer to my ear. After about half an hour, the speaker went off and someone kicked me in the leg. They swore at me the whole time. One of the soldiers cracked a whip near me to scare me. Another soldier held scissors and pushed them against my thighs. They didn't penetrate the skin, but it was still very painful. The soldiers started making bleating and braying sounds, like goats and donkeys. All that went on until someone came in, probably an officer, and asked me who'd hit me. I said it was the soldiers, but I didn't know exactly which one because I couldn't see. I heard him scolding the soldiers for hitting me. After another 10 minutes, they put Nader and me in the vehicle, still handcuffed and blindfolded. We drove until they dropped us off at the entrance to our village. One of the soldiers took off our blindfolds and handed us a written summons. He read it to us, and we understood we were being summoned to a meeting with the ISA on Sunday, at 9:00 A.M., at Ofer Prison. At that point, it was 3:00 A.M. Nader Nofal (18) told B'Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad what happened during his arrest: The soldiers mocked us. I think they were filming us for TikTok, because when they came near us, it sounded like they were talking on the phone and broadcasting it live. They cursed us and our families and also hit and kicked us. One of them cracked something that sounded like a whip next to us, to scare us. One of the soldiers also stabbed me in the shoulder and legs with something sharp. I don’t know if it was a spike or a nail. It was very painful and every time he did that, I shouted. The soldiers made animal noises. It was a few hours later that someone who was in charge, probably an officer, arrived. He asked Muhammad who’d beaten us, but he didn’t know because our eyes were covered. The soldiers took us to a military jeep, with our hands tied and eyes covered. They let us out at the entrance to our village, without taking our restraints off. We managed to take them off ourselves because they were made of cloth and easy to untie. Nofal went on to describe his ISA interrogation at Ofer Prison a few days later: On Sunday, 3 April 2022, at 9:00 A.M., I went with Muhammad to a meeting with the ISA at Ofer Prison. We waited for about half an hour and then were put in a small room, which looked like a solitary confinement cell on the ISA wing. We waited there until 11:00 A.M., and then Muhammad was taken in for a meeting with the ISA that lasted about 40 to 60 minutes. According to what he told me, they mainly asked him who’s been throwing stones and pointing lasers at the soldiers, and questions like that. I went in after Muhammad. My meeting lasted about two hours and I was asked about the same things. The interrogator also suggested I collaborate. He promised me an entry permit to Israel and a good salary. He said: “I’ll call you every two or three days and I want you to answer and tell me what’s going on in the village.” I refused, and then he threatened to revoke my father’s work permit. He added that in future, if I had a problem with the soldiers, he wouldn’t take pity on me and would send me straight to prison. The interrogator banged on the table to scare me because I refused to collaborate. When the conversation was over, he ordered me to leave.
