Beating and Abuse

Abuse and torture in interrogations of dozens of Palestinian minors in the Israel Police Etzion Facility

21 August 2013, updated 28 December 2014

Update: In October 2014, only one case is still underway; it included the investigation of complaints by two minors and one adult who were interrogated at Etzion Police in May 2013. The other cases – opened by the DIP since 2009 in response to complaints B’Tselem filed on behalf of interrogatees at Etzion who complained of violence and threats in the course of questioning – were all closed. To date, no official has conceded the existence of this phenomenon, yet after B’Tselem met with senior police figures, it increasingly diminished and, ultimately, ceased. Since July 2013 B’Tselem has received no reports of violence or threats on the part of Etzion Police investigators in the course of questioning. This situation starkly contrasts with dozens of such reports made by interrogatees to B’Tselem previously.

B’Tselem is still trying to get official information from the authorities as to the system’s handling of the phenomenon. B’Tselem’s letter to State Attorney Shai Nitzan in this regard of 12 March 2014 has yet to receive a response.

Since November 2009, B’Tselem has received testimonies from dozens of Palestinian residents of the Bethlehem and Hebron districts, most of them minors, alleging that they were subjected to threats and violence, sometimes amounting to torture, during their interrogation at the police station at Gush Etzion. The station is located within the jurisdiction of the SHAI (Judea and Samaria) District of the Israel Police. The testimonies describe interrogations in which the minors were forced to confess to alleged offenses, mostly stone-throwing. In almost all cases, the interrogators stopped using violence against the interrogatees once they confessed.

The right of every person not to be subjected to ill-treatment or torture (whether physical or mental) is one of the few human rights that are considered absolute. As an absolute right, it may never be "balanced" against other rights and values, nor suspended or limited, even in difficult circumstances such as war or fighting terrorism. This right now holds the highest and most binding status in international law. A confession obtained through violation of this right can certainly not serve as the basis for a conviction.

M.H., resident of Husan, 14 at the time of his arrest

The interrogator made me go into a room. He grabbed my head and started banging it against the wall. Then he punched me, slapped me and kicked my legs. The pain was immense, and I felt like I couldn’t stand any longer. Then he started swearing at me. He said filthy things about me and about my mother. He threatened to rape me, or perform sexual acts on me, if I didn’t confess to throwing stones. His threats really scared me, because he was very cruel and it was just the two of us in the room. I remembered what I’d seen on the news, when British and American soldiers raped and took photos of naked Iraqis (from the testimony of M.H., resident of Husan, 14 at the time of his arrest).

The interrogations

In November 2009, B'Tselem began receiving reports of violence against Palestinian minors during interrogation at the Etzion police station. Until July 2013, B'Tselem field researchers collected 64 testimonies from residents of eight communities in the southern West Bank who reported such incidents. Fifty-six of them were minors at the time of their interrogation. The testimonies described severe physical violence during the interrogation or preliminary questioning, which, in some cases, amounted to torture. The violence included slaps, punches and kicks to all parts of the body, and blows with objects, such as a gun or a stick. Some of the former interrogatees also reported threats: in twelve cases, they claimed that the interrogator had threatened them or female relatives with sexual assault, such as rape and genital injury. In six cases, the interrogatees claimed that the interrogators had threatened to execute them; in eight cases, the interrogators allegedly threatened to harm family members; and in five other cases, they allegedly threatened to electrocute the interrogatees, including in a way that would damage their fertility.

In addition, twelve interrogatees stated that their initial confession had been taken by an interrogator in civilian clothes and that, to the best of their knowledge, at that stage, it had not been recorded. Only after they confessed to stone-throwing, they were transferred to another room, where an interrogator in police uniform asked them to repeat their confession, this time recording them. Later, the interrogators told them to sign a document in Hebrew, a language they do not understand, without knowing what they were signing.

M.A., resident of Husan, 15 at the time of his arrest

The interrogator “Daud” took me outside with a soldier. They blindfolded me. The plastic cable ties were still on my hands. They put me in a car and started driving. I don’t know where they took me. We reached some place outside Etzion and they forced me out of the car. My hands really hurt because of the cable ties. They took off my blindfold. I didn’t know where I was. They tied me to a tree, and then they raised my cuffed hands and tied them to the tree, too. It hurt a lot. “Daud” started punching me. After a few minutes, he took out a gun and said: “I’ll murder you if you don’t confess! Out here, no one will find you. We’ll kill you and leave you here (M.A., resident of Husan, 15 at the time of his arrest).

The authorities' action on the issue:

From 2009 to 2013, B'Tselem sent 31 complaints to the Department for Investigation of Police (DIP) on behalf of Palestinians who reported they had been subjected to violence and threats by interrogators at the Etzion station. In the rest of the cases that B'Tselem documented, the interrogatees or their families chose not to file a complaint with the DIP, for fear that this would result in harm to members of the family who had already been interrogated or to other relatives, or because of a general lack of trust in the Israeli justice system.

Of the 31 interogatees in whose name B'Tselem complained to the DIP, 20 eventually withdrew from their intention to file a formal complaint and give testimony to DIP investigators, for the reasons stated above. The DIP decided not to investigate any complaints in which the complainant had not personally testified before investigators. Based on replies given to B'Tselem, none of the information sent to the DIP regarding those cases was checked, although this could have helped investigate the systemic practice.

The DIP only opened investigations into the eleven cases in which the complainants had personally given testimony. Three of the case files were closed and the investigation of eight, all opened in June 2012 or later, is still under way.

In its correspondence with the DIP, B'Tselem demanded that the issue of violent interrogations at the Etzion station be handled systemically, and not just through the investigation of each individual complaint. B'Tselem representatives also presented this demand to officials in the Israel Police and the Ministry of Justice. The DIP replied that a systemic investigation of the matter was under way.

Although B'Tselem contacted the Israel Police on this matter repeatedly, no official answer was given to the question whether any steps had been taken to address the phenomenon and, if so, what they were. All our communications with the police on the matter were met with denial. For example, in a meeting held on 7 January 2013, between B'Tselem representatives and the commander of the Hebron Police Division, the police officials denied the phenomenon existed. They refused to comment on the complaints themselves, claiming they could not verify the details of the cases since they were under ongoing investigation by the DIP, and there was a concern of obstructing the investigation. At the meeting, B'Tselem was also informed that the interrogation officer at the Etzion station had been replaced, although it was emphasized that this was unrelated to the complaints made by B'Tselem.

The high number of reports B'Tselem has received regarding violent interrogations at the Etzion station, and the fact that they span several years, gives rise to heavy suspicion that this is not a case of a single interrogator who chose to use illegal interrogation methods, but rather an entire apparatus that backs him up and allows such conduct to take place. Yet, to the best of B'Tselem's knowledge, no real effort has been made to date to discontinue the abuse, and no systemic investigation has taken place. The only action that has been taken was the investigation of individual complaints, which, more than a year later, have not concluded. Law enforcement agencies are allowing this reality to continue, despite the fact that all the relevant officials know that the claims relate to violence against minors under interrogation, and that, in some cases, the violence has amounted to torture.

Given the severity and scope of the suspicions raised, the DIP and the Israel Police must examine the issue systemically. If the claims are substantiated, they must take immediate action to stop the illegal conduct and take legal and administrative measures against those responsible, including officials who are aware of this conduct and are allowing it to continue. Also, the existence of efficient oversight mechanisms must be ensured, so as to prevent similar cases in the future.

The DIP must immediately conclude its investigation of the individual complaints, which has been under way for more than a year. If the claims are substantiated, those responsible must be brought to justice.

Finally, if it is discovered that forced confessions have served as central evidence in the trials of the interrogatees or other individuals, mistrials must be declared, and all the necessary steps that follow as a result must be taken.

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A Routine Founded on Violence

Occupation routine: Soldiers assault 16-year-old at al-'Arrub R.C., break his jaw and arrest him for 26 days

On Sunday, 29 November 2020, at around 8:00 A.M., two military jeeps entered al-'Arrub R.C. Earlier that day, two settlers who were traveling on the road near the refugee camp were slightly injured by stones. As the jeeps entered, children and youths threw stones at the soldiers. The soldiers fired tear gas canisters and stun grenades. One jeep followed the crowd and hit 16-year-old Muhammad Muqbal. He fell but then got up and kept running until the soldiers caught him. A soldier hit him in the jaw, and he fell again. Another soldier kicked him all over his body as he lay on the ground. The soldiers then handcuffed him and put him in the jeep. One of the soldiers kept beating him on the car ride. Muqbal and some other youths who were detained in al-'Arrub R.C. that day were taken to the Etzion police station, where they waited for hours and were interrogated intermittently. Muqbal’s basic rights were violated during his interrogation, which ended with him signing a document written in Hebrew, a language he does not understand. After the interrogation, the soldiers took the youths into a kitchen. One of the soldiers told them they could sleep on the floor. They were given no food or drink during this whole time. At 3:00 A.M., soldiers came and took Muqbal to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem, where he was handcuffed to the bed. Soldiers posted at the door to his room initially refused to let his father in to see him. Muqbal had jaw surgery two days later, and the next evening, 4 December 2020, he was taken to Megiddo Prison. On 6 December 2020, the military prosecution indicted Muqbal on two counts: Throwing a Molotov cocktail in March 2020 and stone-throwing on the day he was arrested. The prosecution asked to have Muqbal remanded to custody until the end of proceedings, but the military judge rejected the motion. The prosecution’s appeal was dismissed, and Muqbal was released on 25 December 2020, after a NIS 3,000 (~ USD 900) bail was posted. On 8 March 2021, Muqbal was convicted in a plea bargain. The first count of the indictment was dropped, and he was sentenced to 26 days in prison - equal to the number of days he had already served. The bail was converted to a fine. Muqbal’s case is not an aberration. It reflects the violence the occupation brings to the everyday lives of young males throughout the West Bank. Israel arrests hundreds of Palestinian minors each year, systemically and systematically violating their rights throughout the entire process - from the arrest itself, through the interrogation and in the legal proceedings at the Juvenile Military Court. While Israel boasts laws and procedures purportedly in place to safeguard the rights of minors, these are no more than a smokescreen designed to legitimize the severe harm caused to minors. Muhammad Muqbal described his arrest and 26-day incarceration to B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 28 December 2020: I ran fast, and one of the military jeeps hit me in the shoulder. I fell down and then got up and carried on running. I went into a house that had its door open. Three soldiers ran after me. One of them caught me and hit me more than once on the left side of the jaw. It hurt badly, and I fell on the floor. Another soldier attacked me and started kicking me in different parts of my body. The wound in my face was bleeding. I got up, and then they led me to the road, tied my hands behind my back and had me sit down in front of a closed shop. A few minutes later, they put me in a jeep and blindfolded me. I sat on the floor of the jeep. There were four soldiers in it, and one of them hit me, kicked me and spat at me more than once. The jeep drove for about 500 meters and stopped at the entrance to the refugee camp, by the gate. The soldiers took me out there, near the electric gate, and from under the blindfold, I saw four detainees that the soldiers had arrested before me, standing at the entrance. A man in military uniforms approached me and said he was “Captain Karam.” I’d heard about him. I know he’s the ISA officer in charge of our refugee camp. He hit me in the face with the butt of his rifle. He moved my blindfold and took a picture of me and the rest of the detainees. After about five minutes, we were all taken in a large military vehicle to the settlement of Carmei Tzur. We were kept there in the courtyard for about two hours. My jaw hurt, and it was bleeding. Then they put us in another military vehicle and drove us to the police station in Etzion. We got there in the early afternoon, and the soldiers took us into the courtyard. In the later afternoon, they started interrogating us, one by one. I was third in line. Before the interrogation, a lawyer spoke to me on the phone and told me I could exercise the right to remain silent and not to be afraid. An interrogator by the name of Yusef interrogated me. He accused me of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli bus a few months ago and throwing stones at military vehicles. I denied both accusations, and after ten minutes, the interrogator took me out to the yard. They left me there until the evening. Then they took me back into the interrogation room, and a different interrogator questioned me. He yelled and said I was lying. He started asking: “So the soldiers and camp residents who saw you do it are liars, and only you’re right?” I continued denying it, and the interrogator wrote down what I said and ordered me to sign my statement. He told me I was signing what I had said. I signed and gave my fingerprints, and my photo was taken. At around 9:00 P.M., after they’d finished questioning the other four detainees, the soldiers took us to a place that looked like a kitchen, in front of the yard, and one of them told us we could sleep on the floor. That’s when a military doctor came and gave us a coronavirus test and asked if we had any illnesses. We sat on the floor in the kitchen for about six hours. They didn’t give us food or drink, and we weren’t able to sleep either. My jaw hurt a lot. We were handcuffed and blindfolded the whole time, and time went by slowly. At around 3:00 A.M., the soldiers took me out of the kitchen. The others had been taken before. I was taken in a small vehicle with a four-soldier escort. I was sitting in the front seat, between two soldiers. We drove to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital. I knew where I was by the sign at the entrance. I got there at about 4:00 A.M. I got tested for coronavirus again, and then I was given painkillers. Two soldiers escorted me. One of them was the one who attacked me during the arrest. I was taken into a room, and one of the soldiers tied my left hand to the bed. The pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep. In the evening, I was taken for X-rays and then brought back to the room. There was a patient from Jerusalem in the room, and he told me he’d heard the doctors saying in Hebrew that I was going to need surgery. After sunset, in the evening hours, my father came and tried to get in the room. He called out to me and asked me how I was feeling. The two soldiers kicked him out. He tried to get to the door every once in a while to ask me how I was doing and told me not to worry. The next day, Tuesday, I was taken into another room, and the soldiers were replaced. The new soldiers let my father come into the room for a few minutes and talk to me. My father told me he had signed consent for my surgery and told me it would be on Wednesday. On Wednesday, I was taken into the operating room, and the surgery started at around noon. It took four hours, and after, they took me back to the room. I found out the doctors had put in a fastener to put my jaw together on the left side. It stops me from chewing or moving my jaw. On Thursday, at around 8:00 P.M., I was taken in a vehicle used to transport detainees to Megiddo Prison with my hands and feet cuffed. In the prison, they took me into a room where I stayed by myself for four days. After that, I was taken into a room with five underaged detainees. I stayed at Megiddo for 18 days. I got soup to eat and painkillers. There were three court hearings that I attended through video. A lawyer represented me. Then, I was transferred to Ofer Prison, where there was a final hearing on 24 December 2020, which I also attended through video. It lasted more than half an hour, and the judge asked me what I would do when I went back home. I told him I’d go back to school. I couldn’t understand the interpreter that well because the connection wasn’t good, and I didn’t understand what the judge decided. They took me back to a room at Ofer, and I stayed the night there. In the morning, it was Friday, they told me I was getting released that day. I later found out I’d been released on a 3,000 NIS bail. That day, 25 December 2020, before noon, a military jeep took me to the al-Jib checkpoint, and my father was waiting for me there in a friend’s car and took me home. I still can’t eat properly, and I’m getting liquids only. A doctor at the hospital in Hebron told me it would take two more weeks before they remove the metal fastener. Muhammad’s father, Munir Muqbal, 47 and father of six, said in a testimony he gave to B’Tselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash on 6 December 2020, while his son was held in custody: The day after the arrest, in the early afternoon, I got a call from Hadassah hospital and got asked to go there to sign the approval for Muhammad’s surgery. They sent me an invitation, and I sent it to the Coordination and Liaison Administration. At 5:00 P.M., I got an entry permit. I went straight to Hadassah Hospital and went up to the seventh floor. I saw Muhammad in one of the rooms and tried to go in, but two soldiers who were in the room barred me from entering. I stood in the doorway and asked Muhammad how he was feeling, and he said he was okay. I tried to go in the room several times, but the two soldiers wouldn’t let me. I managed to take a picture of Muhammad, who was tied to the bed. I stayed in the hallway all night and tried to get some sleep on one of the chairs there, but I wasn’t able to. On Tuesday, he was taken to a different room, and the two soldiers who had been there were replaced by others. One of the new soldiers let me in and talk to him for a few minutes. I managed to take a photo of him too. His left hand was tied to the bed, and a patient who was in the room with him told me his surgery was scheduled for Wednesday. On Wednesday, at around noon, he was taken to the operating room. The surgery lasted four hours, and after that, he was brought back to the room, and I managed to talk to him for about 15 minutes. The doctors told me they had put in a jaw fastener, so he would have a hard time eating for quite some time. I expected Muhammad to stay in the hospital for further treatment, but to my surprise, the very next day, Thursday, in the evening, the soldiers took him to Megiddo Prison. I went home and got updates about what was happening to him from a lawyer with Defense for Children International. His mother and I are very worried because they took him back to jail right after the operation.

21 March 2021

Torture and Abuse

Backed by the System

Joint report with HaMoked, Center for the Defence of the Individual Sleep deprivation; prolonged binding; verbal and sometimes physical abuse; exposure to heat and cold; poor, meager food; small, foul-smelling cells; solitary confinement; unhygienic conditions. A new report by HaMoked and B’Tselem shows these to be standard in interrogations at Israel Security Agency’s (ISA) facility at Shikma Prison. The report is based on affidavits and testimonials by 116 Palestinians interrogated there from Aug. 2013 to March 2014, including at least 14 who had been interrogated under torture by the Palestinian Authority shortly before. The ISA’s interrogation system is run with the approval of Israeli authorities, including the High Court of Justice.

1 December 2015

Demonstrations

15 Jan. '12: Judge holds confession of Palestinian minor admissible, although it was obtained through breach of his rights

On 9 January 2012, Israeli Military Youth Court judge Major Sharon Rivlin-Ahai held that the confession given to the police by I.D., a 14-year-old Palestinian boy from a-Nabi Saleh, interrogated on suspicion of stone throwing, was admissible. The judge admitted the confession even though the minor had been questioned in breach of his rights under Israel’s Youth Law, whose spirit, according to the Military Appeals Court, applies also in adjudication of Palestinian minors in the military courts.I.D. was arrested at home in the middle of the night. He was not allowed to rest, eat, or go to the bathroom and, from the morning, was interrogated for more than seven hours. He was interrogated, without his parents present, by three or four interrogators, only one of whom is a trained youth interrogator – although even he is not currently functioning in that capacity and has not undergone retraining following the changes in the Youth Law made in 2008. I.D.'s interrogation, taken from video footage of the interrogation by the police.Despite the fact that I.D.’s attorney contacted the interrogators before the interrogation began, I.D. was only allowed to consult with him five and a half hours of interrogation. One of the interrogators read I.D. his rights three times, each time omitting the right to remain silent and emphasizing that he must tell the whole truth.Under interrogation, I.D. admitted to throwing stones and incriminated two persons from his village in organizing demonstrations and inciting villagers to throw stones.I.D.’s attorney complained that his client’s confession had been obtained through use of improper means and should not be allowed into evidence. As a result, the court held a trial-within-a-trial, in which the judge ruled that the confession was admissible.In her decision, Judge Rivlin-Ahai accepted some of the defense’s claims regarding the nature of the interrogation but held, nevertheless, that ruling the confession inadmissible was not justified. Regarding the interrogation in the absence of I.D.'s parents, she held that, as I.D. had given information on many fellow villagers, she accepted the interrogator’s statement that “it is highly likely that, even if the parents had come, he would not have permitted them to be present during the interrogation.” As for the refusal to allow the minor to meet with his attorney, the judge ruled that, “from the moment that the interrogation began and it became clear that the defendant was providing valuable information on the involvement of many other persons, the decision to prevent the meeting with the attorney for several hours cannot be viewed as patently unreasonable.” On the decision not to wait for the attorney's arrival to begin the interrogation, although he had notified the interrogators that he was on his way, Judge Rivlin-Ahai said that the interrogators should have waited, but “it is hard to say that the decision not to wait, when the defendant had already been in detention since night-time and was waiting for the interrogation to begin… was so unreasonable and unjust that it critically harmed the fairness of the interrogation.” With respect to I.D.’s tiredness, the judge contended that video footage of the interrogation indicated that "it was not tiredness of the kind that would prevent a substantive interrogation.”.In her summary, the judge emphasized that, “each of the circumstances… could, in certain circumstances, each on its own and certainly cumulatively, lead to the conclusion that the fairness of the interrogation was harmed to the core… In the unique concrete circumstances existing here, I did not find this to be the case.”The only essential flaw that the judge found in the interrogation was that the interrogators did not properly clarify to I.D. that he had the right to remain silent, instead giving him the impression that he was obliged to tell them everything he knew. On this point, the judge stated in her decision:As noted, the flaw in the defendant's interrogation is serious. On the other hand, I have concluded that this flaw did not have a real effect on the manner in which the defendant gave his confession. Therefore, I believe that the infringement of the defendant’s rights in the specific case did not result in greater than necessary violation of his right to criminal due process, to the extent that would nullify his confession and, as a result, impede revelation of the true facts and advancement of the public interest in combating criminality.The testimonies of interrogators of the SHAI (Judea and Samaria) Police Department in the trial-within-a-trial indicated that the interrogation of I.D. is the norm in the Department's handling of Palestinian minors. Under cross-examination, the police officers said that Palestinian minors are regularly interrogated without their parents in the room, by interrogators who have not been trained as youth interrogators, and in a manner that breaches Israel’s Youth Law. However, since most files involving minors end in plea bargains, judges generally do not have the opportunity to give their opinion on the conduct of the interrogation and to alter the police’s unlawful practices.In I.D.’s case, the court had a rare opportunity to provide the minor with real protection and to establish a rule that would protect the rights of all Palestinian minors interrogated by the police. It is highly regrettable that the judge chose to admit the confession into evidence rather than send a clear message to the authorities that the public interest actually lies in the proper protection of the rights of minors.

15 January 2012