Muhammad did not run away. He’s not alright in the head, a little crazy. The soldiers went up to him and hit him. He said to them “Screw you”, which is what he says to everyone. Then they attacked him, punching him with their fists and beating him with their rifle butts all over the body.
They tried to put him in the car. He resisted and they hit him again. I called out to the soldiers and told them in Hebrew: “This one has no brain, crazy”. One soldier said to me: “Give us one with a brain and we’ll make him even worse than this guy”. In the end they threw him on the ground, tied his hands and put him in the jeep. The women and neighbors kept shouting that Muhammad was crazy, but that didn’t help. They took him from the village in the jeep.
In Beit Rima, Ramallah District, on 29 June 1991
The testimony of Hassan ‘Afifah from the village of Beit Rima
The testimony was given to Yuval Ginbar on 8 July 1991
On Saturday, 29 June 1991, at about 2:00 P.M., I was at home. I saw young men running away from soldiers. Muhammad was sitting in front of my neighbor’s house. Soldiers came with a big jeep. There were about ten soldiers there.On 29 June 1991, soldiers came to our village and there were confrontations between them and youths from the village. The soldiers, who were chasing the boys, came across my brother Muhammad, who wasn’t taking part in the clashes. He was 23 years old. Later, I was told that the soldiers had attacked him and then taken him away in a jeep. They held him in the settlement of Halamish from the early afternoon until night, and released him after the head of the council contacted the military governor. Instead of returning him to the village, they left him near the settlement. A resident happened to pass by and brought him home. Muhammad’s body was full of black and blue bruises from the severe beatings that he got from the soldiers.
Since that incident, Muhammad has suffered from a phobia. He is terrified of the army. Any time he just hears there are soldiers in the village, he runs inside and locks himself in. Three or four months after the soldiers attacked him, the army imposed a curfew on the village and we couldn’t leave the house. We sat in the yard. Suddenly, a military patrol vehicle passed by the house and Muhammad jumped up in panic, ran inside and closed the doors. The soldiers saw this and thought he was doing something suspicious. They jumped out of the vehicle and ran after him. They took him out of the house and hit him. We explained to them that he is mentally disabled and begged them to stop, to let him be. We even showed them medical records from the hospital, but nothing helped. We tried to convince them for a whole hour and called officials to intervene, until finally they let him go.
That happened again several times: him being frightened by the army and running away, and the soldiers suspecting him, chasing him and assaulting him. To protect him, we started making sure he stayed home, especially before the Palestinian Authority was established, when the army still entered our village almost every day. But even now the army enters the village, so it’s still a problem.
Before Muhammad was attacked by the soldiers, he worked in agriculture and used to herd the flock. He functioned, looked after himself and helped the family’s livelihood. Since the attack, his condition got worse and the damage appears to be irreversible. Because he sits at home all the time doing nothing, Muhammad has also gained a lot of weight.
Sometimes he has nightmares and shouts all kinds of things, such as “They’re going to shoot me! They want to kill me!” or “They’re attacking me, owwww, my stomach. Stop hitting me. Stop it!”. Hallucinations like that, all to do with the army. Sometimes he has a nightmare about the army and the whole family wakes up from the noise. Lately, he has been hallucinating a lot. Sometimes he talks to himself and sometimes with us, but the things he says don’t make sense.
He even physically attacked the family several times. Once, he attacked our father and sister. He attacked me, too, but I can handle it. I know how to restrain him. His behavior also affects our relations with neighbors and makes it difficult with strangers, who don’t really understand why he behaves this way. My late father suffered more than anyone else. After every such incident, he had to go to appease people and it caused him great embarrassment. Even my mother, Hikmiyeh, 80, is still suffering in old age from Muhammad’s actions and behavior.
We took him to many medical centers and specialists, and he’s on sedatives, but they don’t always help. Even if his condition improves for a while, he always deteriorates afterwards.
The military caused this tragedy, but no one was held accountable. At the time, a representative of B’Tselem documented the case, I don’t remember his name, and a complaint was filed. I gave evidence at the offices of the Civil Administration in Halamish, as did other witnesses from the village. At the time I was told that an investigation had been opened, but it was closed with no result. The physical and emotional damage caused to Muhammad fell on the shoulders of the family alone.
Saher al-Barghouti, Muhammad’s brother, 56, and a father of seven, spoke to B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad this year and described the impact of the incident on the entire family:
My brother Muhammad had meningitis as a small child, which lowered his IQ and impaired his ability to learn. He couldn’t take care of himself anymore and didn’t go to school. There wasn’t enough awareness at the time so there were no special education schools.1. Following your complaint, the Military Police Investigation Unit opened an investigation.
2. According to the evidence, during a pursuit of stone-throwers in the village of Beit Rima, soldiers apprehended a local who was seen throwing stones. After the latter resisted arrest verbally and physically, the soldiers used reasonable force to arrest him.
3. It should be noted that according to the investigation material, it seems that the soldiers were not aware that this person is intellectually challenged.
4. In these circumstances, we did not see fit to order any legal proceedings against the soldiers, and the investigation file was closed.
5. FYI.
Letter to B’Tselem dated 4 February 1992 from Lieut. Col. Shlomi Tzipori, Head of Legal Supervision and Guidance, MAG Corps 5.