Torture and Abuse
On Sunday, 22 August 2021, Yazan (22) and Muhammad (20) a-Rajbi arrived at the Russian Compound detention facility after being summoned for an Israeli Security Agency (ISA) interrogation. Upon arrival, they were arrested and taken to the ISA wing, where they were interrogated under torture for 42 days. The torture included being kept sitting on small chairs and handcuffed to them for more than 24 hours, being denied access to the bathroom, as well as food and drink, being kept in a small cell, where they could neither stand up straight nor lie down and being deprived of continuous sleep. One of them was also locked, handcuffed, inside a wooden closet and left there for a long time until he lost consciousness. The interrogators also sent the two to various prisons and put them in cells with collaborators, who threatened and isolated them in an attempt to extract information or a confession from them. The interrogators accused the two of participating in clashes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in July of 2021- an accusation they both denied. After 20 days, Muhammad a-Rajbi admitted he had thrown one stone after he could no longer bear the torture. He was nevertheless interrogated for 22 more days in an attempt to force additional confessions out of him. Yazan a-Rajbi admitted to throwing two stones, which brought his interrogation to an end. He was transferred to Megiddo Prison 42 days after his arrest. They were charged with participation in riots and an attempted assault on a police officer and sentenced to eight months in prison. After their release in March 2022, they gave their testimony to B’Tselem. The use of torture in Yazan and Muhammad a-Rajbi’s interrogation was not a private initiative undertaken by a specific ISA interrogator, but rather part of an interrogation method that relies on cutting detainees off from the world by subjecting them to harsh and degrading holding conditions and prolonged, violent face to face interrogations. This system of torture may be applied by ISA interrogators but it is enabled by other authorities, including the Israeli Prison Service, which creates the severe holding conditions, judges who repeatedly remand detainees to custody while ignoring what is being done to them, and the law enforcement system which grants ISA interrogators who harm detainees immunity from prosecution. In a testimony gave B’Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri, Yazan a-Rajbi (22), a resident of the neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, spoke about his interrogation under torture at the Russian Compound, Megiddo Prison and Shikma Prison in August 2021. His testimony was collected on 28 March 2022 after his release from prison. On Sunday, 22 August 2021, at around 6:00 A.M., I went to the police station at the Russian Compound after receiving a summons from the ISA. When I arrived, I was immediately arrested, given a change of clothes and put in a holding cell, where I was alone. After about an hour, I was taken in for interrogation. The interrogators accused me of firing at Israel Police and Border Police vehicles on 9 July 2021. I denied it. That day, I was in the a-Tur neighborhood with my brother visiting a friend, and I didn’t participate in the clashes that broke out in Silwan then. A relative of mine (19) was wounded in the back by police in those clashes. I told all of this to the interrogators, but the interrogation continued until 11:00 P.M. There were 12 interrogators. There were six interrogators in the room at any given time. They took turns. They bombarded me with questions non-stop. All this time, I was sitting on a chair with my hands handcuffed behind my back and my legs shackled. They didn’t beat me but cursed my family and my mother. They didn’t let me go to the bathroom and didn’t bring me food or water, even though I asked them. One of the interrogators told me that they had more important things to deal with than water and going to the bathroom. The next day, they didn’t interrogate me. I was able to rest from sitting on the chair. In the morning, they brought me a boiled egg and a piece of chocolate. There was a tap in the cell. The cell itself was designed for sleeping only and was so small I had to sleep curled up, and there was no room to stretch my legs. The cell had a squatting toilet, no toilet seat, and a small sink. The ceiling was low, and I couldn’t stand straight and had to bend down. On Tuesday, at 8:30 A.M., I was taken in for interrogation again. One of the interrogators told me what time it was. They sat me on a chair again with my hands handcuffed behind my back and my legs shackled in front. I stayed in this position for two days, constantly being interrogated and asked questions. This time, too, there were six interrogators who switched every four hours. The interrogators kept pressuring me to admit that I participated in the shooting on 9 July 2021. I told them that I was at a friend’s in the a-Tur neighborhood during the clashes, and then I was told that my relative had been injured in the clashes in the neighborhood and was taken to al-Makassed Hospital. The hospital is close to my friend’s house, so I went straight over when I heard he was wounded. I told the interrogators they could check the cameras on the street. For the entire two days of this interrogation round, I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom and had to pee in my pants. They wouldn’t let me change, and I was left with urine and feces inside my clothes in the interrogation room. The interrogators kept their distance from me because of the smell of feces and sprayed perfume in the room. It wasn’t until I went back to the cell that they let me change, and it was only then that I washed myself in the sink. During the first week of detention, they also locked me up in a low, closed wooden closet inside one of the interrogation rooms. They sat me down inside it in a semi-squat. My head was between my legs, which were shackled. I couldn’t lift it. My hands were also cuffed behind my back. I don’t remember how long they left me in the closet, maybe two hours or more. When the interrogators opened the closet, I was already unconscious. I think the interrogator knows exactly how long a person can last inside such a closet. It’s like a pressure cooker. I felt my head was about to explode from the pressure, and my back was about to break. When I recovered, I saw the six interrogators who put me in this closet. They immediately started questioning me on another matter. This time, they accused me of collecting money from guys in Silwan to buy firecrackers on the day the municipality demolished a store belonging to one of the residents because it was built without a permit. I don’t remember what day the store was demolished, but I do remember that when it happened, I was at my job in Jaffa. We did plumbing work at a construction site near the beach. I even took a selfie at the site. I didn’t tell them that. I exercised the right to remain silent and refused to answer any of the interrogators’ questions. During the interrogations, they brought another detainee, M.G. (20), into the interrogation room, who told me, “I’m sorry, under the pressure of torture, I said you participated in the summer incidents.” He was screaming and crying when he told me this. The interrogators brought in another guy, H.’A. (19), who also told them that I’d collected money to buy firecrackers. About two weeks after I was arrested, I was transferred to Megiddo Prison, where I was placed in a room with six other people. I was sure they were “asafir,” meaning collaborators, because they tried to get me to confess. At first, they tried to just talk to me, but when that didn’t work, they put nine other people in the cell, who told me that I was an ISA collaborator myself and threatened me. Some of them had razors, and they tried to scare me into confessing. Then someone else arrived, handed me a notebook and told me to write the names of guys who throw stones in Silwan. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. After about three days in the collaborators’ cell, I was driven to the courthouse to extend my detention and then taken to Ashkelon Prison and put in a large wing with many detainees. One of them asked me to help him fold laundry, and as I did, he tried to extract information from me. He wanted me to admit to firing on a Border Police vehicle and that I’d bought firecrackers. When I returned to the room, I found out I’d been labeled a collaborator because I refused to say why I was arrested and what happened in the interrogation room. The collaborators isolated me in a separate room and told me, “You’re staying here until you admit what you did. We want to protect you.” There was only cold water in the shower in the room. They held me there for four days. I was there all alone. I only ate what they brought me because the collaborators forbade me to leave the room. When I returned to the cell, one of the detainees approached me and handed me a cell phone. He told me I could talk to my family. I told him I didn’t remember the phone numbers of my mom and dad or any of my siblings. At that moment, someone hit me on the back of the neck. I turned around and saw it was one of the interrogators from the Russian Compound. I didn’t understand where he suddenly came from. He must’ve been waiting for me there with the collaborators. He tied my hands and feet, led me to a private vehicle and blindfolded me with a piece of cloth. He wrapped the seat belt around my neck and fastened it. I felt I was suffocating the whole way from Ashkelon to Jerusalem. There were two other people in the car. One of them was sitting next to me. The interrogators kept questioning me during the ride. They told me, “Confess and get rid of this torture.” I kept exercising the right to remain silent. I was taken back to the Russian Compound, and there, the interrogation continued. They kept me sitting on a chair again for a day and a half, and again I had to pee in my pants. That’s when I decided to end the whole thing. I told the interrogators, “I admit to throwing two stones in the clashes at the al-Aqsa mosque, but other than that, I didn’t do anything.” At that moment, the torture and the interrogations stopped, and a few days later, 42 days after I was arrested, I was transferred to Megiddo Prison. On 17 December 2021, I was sentenced to eight months in prison and a six-month suspended sentence. What I went through in the interrogations was a very difficult and painful experience: I was cut off from the world. My head, abdomen and neck hurt because of the positions they handcuffed me in for long hours. I only ate once a day, at best. There were even days when I didn’t eat anything. Maybe three days like that. Since I was released, my eyesight hasn’t been good. Muhammad a-Rajbi (20), a resident of the neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, told B’Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri about his torture during the interrogations at the Russian Compound and Megiddo Prison in August 2021. His testimony was collected on 28 March 2022, after his release from prison: On Sunday, 22 August 2021, I went to the police station in the Russian Compound after receiving a summons for questioning. I was immediately put in the holding cells. There was another person in the cell with me. I think he was an “asfur,” meaning a collaborator, because he tried to get personal details or a confession out of me. That night, I was taken for in for interrogation. There were 10 interrogators there. They accused me of throwing stones and hurling firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at settlers in Silwan on 7 and 9 July 2021. They didn’t beat me during the interrogation. They just screamed and swore at me as I was sitting on a chair with my hands tied behind my back and my legs shackled in front. The interrogator repeatedly told me, “Confess already. If not, you’ll sit on that chair forever.” They interrogated me for 20 days, during which I sat on that chair for long hours. They gave me food once a day at the end of the interrogation. There were two days when I didn’t eat because the interrogation took longer. The interrogator told me, “We want to finish the interrogation. There’s no food.” When I returned to the cell, they didn’t bring me anything. They told me there was no more food. Because they did not let me go to the bathroom, I had to hold it in for a very long time, and it caused pain in my bladder. When I was put back in detention, the first thing I did each time was pee, and then the pain was even more intense. After 20 straight days of interrogation, I confessed to throwing one stone. I confessed because I was fed up and exhausted. I was in pain during this entire time because I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom. I was also not given enough food, didn’t sleep, and sat handcuffed on a chair for long hours, maybe ten or 15 hours a day. After I confessed, I was taken to Megiddo Prison, where they put me in the room with the “asafir,” who tried to make me spill out more information. They claimed they were from the Tanzim (Fatah’s military wing), that they were helping prisoners, and wanted to know everything about me to protect me inside the prison. I was kept in this room for two days. They kept threatening to hit me, and I was afraid they’d do it. After a few days, I was taken back to the Russian Compound, where they continued tying me to the chair every day, like in the first round of interrogation. The interrogators threw more and more questions at me, and I kept telling them, “I confessed to throwing one stone. That’s all I have to say.” In those interrogations, the last ones, they did let me go to the bathroom. Not immediately when I asked, but after an hour or two, at most. My whole body ached, not only because of the urinary retention but also my head, back, and neck due to being tied to the chair and the difficulty of falling asleep in the holding cell. They kept me in a tiny cell, and I had to curl up the whole time. The guards didn’t bring food to the cells, and sometimes I refused to eat because the food was awful: half-cooked rice, hard potatoes or dry and inedible pastries. The interrogation period was very tough because they wouldn’t let us sleep. One of the guards kept knocking on the cell doors to harass the detainees. After the second interrogation period ended, I was transferred to Megiddo Prison. I was sentenced to eight months. When I was arrested, I was a 12th-grade student, and because of the arrest, I missed a lot of school. After I was released, I decided not to go back to school. I’ve been working in cleaning in the meantime, and I don’t know if I’ll find another job. The arrest ruined my future.
23 May 2022
This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and HaMoked - Center for the Defence of the Individual, and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. 
