Gideon Levy Israeli Occupation's Brutal Routine: Nightly Raids, Boys Cuffed for Hours and Seized Jewelry
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It’s the last street at the southern edge of the West Bank
town of Beit Ummar, between Bethlehem and Hebron. The settlement of
Karmei Tzur looms on the hill across the way. A street like any other:
one- and two-story homes, potholes, no sidewalk. On this long road,
which doesn’t even have a name and where grace does not abound, hardly a
night goes by without a raid by the Israel Defense Forces. The troops swoop in four or five times a week, usually in the dead of night.
Here’s
what they’ve done in the past few weeks: They caught a boy who was
suspected of throwing stones, dragged him across rock-strewn ground for
hundreds of meters, thrust him into a room and forced him to stay there
for six hours, blindfolded and hands bound; they confiscated money and
jewelry from a number of homes; wrested a few young people from their
beds; and handcuffed members of an entire family, including the women,
leaving them bound that way after they left.
This is how the occupation looks in Beit Ummar.
Khaled
Bahar, a small, lean, smiling boy of 13 with a chirpy voice and who
looks younger than his age, is well groomed and sports a trendy haircut.
He relates what happened to him one night two weeks ago just like an
adult; children here grow up fast. This week, when we visited his home
in Beit Ummar, located at the far end of the street of troubles, he was
sitting on the living room sofa in the company of his family. Logs were
burning in the fireplace: Winter, too, has descended on the village,
early.
Khaled’s
father works in the local branch of a Jordanian bank. In addition to
the nighttime raids, Israeli soldiers also appear on his street daily at
the same time, around dusk, from Karmei Tzur. About 400 meters [1,310
feet] separate the settlement’s iron gate and the street. Like a ritual,
the children wait for the soldiers, follow them and occasionally throw
stones at them from afar. They also talk to them, says Khaled.
On
October 16, too, soldiers entered the town and took up positions in the
structure of an unfinished house on the street. Khaled and his friends
stood below the house, leaning on a stone wall. According to Khaled, the
rocks his friends threw didn’t even get close to the four or five
soldiers. He himself did not throw any, he adds.
After
watching the 10 or so children for a time, the soldiers came down to
the street, splitting into two units. One unit got to Khaled, who
describes the event as though it were some sort of strategic offensive.
Two of the soldiers grabbed him, one by the neck, the other by an arm.
You have to see how small Khaled is to appreciate the absurdity of this
situation. They dragged him forcibly in the direction of the settlement.
He says he stumbled a few times along the way and was scratched by
thorns. He was very frightened but didn’t cry, and when he tried to ask
them where they were taking him, they told him to shut up.
Khaled’s
cousin, Abded Kader Bahar, ran after them. He’s the same age as Khaled
but even leaner, and has an even fancier hairdo. He shouted at the
soldiers, then tried to kick them. One of the soldiers thrust his rifle
butt into Abded’s back and tried to shoo him away. Khaled called out to
his cousin to run. Other members of Khaled’s family, among them his
mother and an uncle, arrived and tried to pry Khaled loose from the
soldiers’ grip.
“Mom,
don’t be afraid, I’m alright,” Khaled cried out to his frightened
mother. His uncle, Moussa, urged the soldiers to hand over his nephew.
“I will educate him,” he told them. “All these years, none of you have
educated him,” the soldier-pedagogue replied, vanishing with Khaled
behind the settlement’s gate.
Khaled
was taken to a room, handcuffed and blindfolded, and made to sit on a
chair, where he remained for the next six hours – scared, tired, bound.
He remembers that he was given water and offered food, but declined it
because he didn’t trust the soldiers. He wanted to go to sleep, but just
as his head drooped, he suddenly heard the barking of a dog next to
him. Scared, he thought they were siccing a dog on him to prevent him
from sleeping, but through a slit in the blindfold, he saw someone’s
fingers scratching his legs. It turned out to be a practical joke: A
soldier was on his knees and barking like a dog in order to scare the
boy. War games.
Khaled
was cold and asked for a blanket; after a time, someone brought him
one. The chair was uncomfortable, but the soldiers refused to move him.
Khaled thought about his mother, he says. Just as he was drifting off
again, he heard a soldier calling him: “Yallah, yallah, get up.” They
told him they were taking him somewhere. He asked where, and one of the
soldiers replied, “First to Kiryat Arba, then to Etzion [a security
forces facility] and then to Ben Gurion Airport.” Hearing “airport”
unnerved the boy. He was placed in a military vehicle and taken to the
police station in Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron. By now it was late at
night.
At
the station, he was taken to an interrogation room and the blindfold
was removed. When he asked to go to the restroom, the handcuffs were
taken off.
“Why did you throw stones?” the interrogator demanded.
“I didn’t,” Khaled insisted.
The
policeman showed him a photo on a cell phone and asked, “Who is this?”
Khaled said he didn’t know. “But he’s wearing the same shirt you have
on,” the officer said. As usual in the territories, no lawyer and no
parents were present – as stipulated by law in Israel for minors.
“If you throw stones again, we’ll kill you,” the policeman said.
Khaled
was released following a brief interrogation. It was 2 A.M. Palestinian
security liaison personnel took him to the gas station at the entrance
to Beit Ummar, where his father was waiting for him. Back home, he
didn’t want to eat or drink, only to sleep. He didn’t go to school the
next day. Nor did little Abded Kader Bahar, as a token of solidarity.
Khaled’s sister says that the next night, Khaled cried out in his sleep,
“Don’t pull me, it wasn’t me! I didn’t throw anything!”
Khaled doesn’t remember a thing.
‘They’re choking me’
Ibrahim
Abu Marya, a 50-year-old electrician from Beit Ummar, lives up the
street from Khaled’s family. On October 25, soldiers invaded his home at
about 2:30 A.M. After so many times, he’s used to it by now.
There
was an explosion near the front door and around 30 soldiers entered,
along with a K-9 dog. Mahdi, his 14-year-old son, was bound by the
troops and a soldier gripped him by the neck. “They’re choking me,”
Mahdi shouted to his father. Ibrahim was pushed away; seven soldiers
encircled him, he says. Bara, his daughter, who’s 17, tried to come to
the aid of her brother, but the soldiers bound her hands with plastic
handcuffs. She’s a pretty girl with a ponytail, now wearing a sweatshirt
that says “I love you,” and slippers with rabbit ears. There were no
female soldiers among the Israeli force. The older sister, Ala, 23, was
also handcuffed when she tried to help Mahdi.
Ibrahim
asked the soldiers why they were being so violent, but got no reply.
From the kitchen, he heard the shouts of his other son, Mohammed, 22,
whom the soldiers had come to arrest. The mother, Faduah, 50, was locked
in her room and not allowed to leave.
The
soldiers took Mohammed outside and as they were about to leave, Ibrahim
asked one of them to release him and the others from their handcuffs.
“It’s not my business,” the soldier told him. The soldiers spent about
an hour in the home, before leaving with Mohammed. He is now being
detained in Ashkelon prison. A neighbor arrived to remove the handcuffs.
Soldiers
have raided the Abu Marya home about 20 times in the past few years.
It’s routine. The previous visit was less routine, though.
On
October 4, soldiers arrived at dusk and went up to the roof. They left
after a while and returned at night to conduct a search. Ibrahim told
Faduah to bring the cash they had in the house – 20,000 shekels
($5,680), which he’d borrowed from his brother-in-law to help pay for a
heart operation for his father, Abdel Hamid, who is 83. He shows us the
documents stating that his father was in Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron at
the time.
A
female soldier took the bag containing the cash and counted the money,
taking 10,500 shekels and giving Ibrahim 9,500 shekels. The
authorization form, signed by Inbal Gozlan, describes the cash as “Hamas
money”: 52 200-shekel bills and one of 100. The form, a “Seizure Order
in Arabic,” is rife with clauses and sub-clauses citing security and
emergency regulations, according to which the money was impounded.
Ibrahim
tells us he has no ties with Hamas or any other organization: “My
‘party’ is the municipality and the electrician’s profession,” he says.
How
did the soldier determine that about half the money was Hamas funds and
the rest was not? It’s hard to know. The authorization form contains a
phone number for appeals, but Ibrahim says he was told that hiring a
lawyer will cost him more than the money taken. He has written off the
money.
According
to Musa Abu Hashhash, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights
organization B’Tselem, IDF soldiers have lately been confiscating money
with great frequency in the Hebron area. That same night, troops raided
three other homes in Beit Ummar, confiscating money and property.
Soldiers removed all the jewelry that Amal Sabarna – whose husband,
Nadim, is in administrative detention (imprisoned without trial) – was
wearing around her neck and hands, and impounded it. She received the
items as a gift, she says. The soldiers also removed a gold earring from
an earlobe of her daughter.
The
IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stated in response: “With respect to the first
incident mentioned in the article, the suspect was arrested after he was
caught throwing stones at the gate of the settlement of Karmei Tzur,
held for interrogation and released thereafter without being taken to
the police station.
“As
to the second incident, during a nighttime operation, terror activist
Mohammed Abu Marya was arrested. Participating in the activity were
female soldiers who checked the women in the house. It must be stressed
that members of the family were not bound at any stage during the
operation.
“As
to the third incident, authorization was given for impounding the
10,500 shekels, which were received from a terror organization.
“As
for the last incident, it should be emphasized that no jewelry was
removed from [the person of] any of the individuals in the house.
Rather, jewelry was confiscated in the presence of representatives of
the police, of a value that had been approved in advance.
“In
spite of the above, following the incident the protocol was clarified
and it was decided that confiscation of jewelry instead of terror funds
will take place only in the event that specific approval has been given
for doing so.”
Soldiers
returned to Beit Ummar this past week, too, of course. On Sunday night,
they entered the home of Ibrahim Abu Marya’s brother, who lives nearby,
and ordered his 16-year-old son, Muhand, to show them where another
resident, Ahmed Abu Hashem lives. The boy refused. When the soldiers
finally got to the Abu Hashem house, they arrested Ahmed’s son, Kusai,
who’s also 16.
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