I was with my friend in a car at Huwwara checkpoint, near Nablus. It was around 2:00 p.m. When it was our turn to be checked, Israeli soldiers told me and my friend to get out of the car. I believe informants had told them I was in that car. A soldier immediately tied my hands behind my back with two plastic ties on top of each other. The ties were tight and painful. Then I was blindfolded and taken towards the military watchtower. On the way I was beaten all over my body. I was tied and blindfolded and I had several gunshot wounds including one in my pelvis and another in my left elbow. The received last injury about two months before I was arrested.

 

At the watchtower a soldier threw me face down on the ground. I was left in that position until around 11:00 p.m. They made me take off my trousers to search me. My injured elbow started to bleed. 

 

At around 11:00 p.m. I was taken to a military base where a doctor examined my bleeding elbow. He told the soldiers I could not withstand an interrogation and recommended that they take me to prison. Then I was taken to Ofer prison, near Jerusalem. I was driven in a GMC vehicle and I was beaten on the way. At Ofer I was strip searched before being taken into section 13.

 

The next morning I was told I was going to be taken to the military court. I was taken to Salem military court, in the north of the West Bank. The trip was long and tiring. In the end, I was not taken to court, instead I was taken for interrogation. 

 

The interrogator was not wearing uniform. He was in civilian clothes. He did not inform me of my right to silence and only when he was finished interrogating me he called a lawyer for me. 

 

The interrogator started by shouting at me and threatened if I did not confess he was going to send me to Petah Tikva for a harsher interrogation. He wanted me to tell him how and where I had been shot and accused me of attempting a terror attack. He took pictures of my gunshot wounds and made fun of me. He questioned me for about two hours. He asked me about other boys in the refugee camp and wanted to know my relationship to them. He wanted me to say they had recruited me to commit a terror attack. He told me I was a terrorist and told me they had found pipe bombs in the car I was in when I was arrested. He thumped the table when I denied the accusations. 

 

At the end I confessed to throwing stones which is a minor offence. I told him I threw two stones from a distance of 500 meters which missed. Then he asked me to sign a document written in Hebrew but I refused to sign a document written in a language I did not understand. 

 

After I had confessed the interrogator called a lawyer for me. I told the lawyer I had already confessed. The interrogator was listening on speaker phone. 

 

Then I was taken to Megiddo prison, inside Israel, where I was strip searched and asked to bend forward and crouch up and down which was humiliating. Then I was taken to a military court. My parents were not there because they were not told I had a hearing. My detention was extended. 

 

Then I was taken to a room with an informant. I realised he was an informant because he had shoe laces in his boots. The guards always take shoe laces away during the search. I told the collaborator I was unjustly arrested. Two hours later I was taken to section 3.

 

I had about 12 military court hearings. I was supposed to have a hearing on 10 October 2023, but then the war started and my hearing was cancelled. My lawyer told my father I was facing five years in prison. But thankfully I was released in the Hamas deal. I was among the last to be released. I cried in prison because all my friends were released before me. Out of 70 children in the section, 15 were left. It was hard.

 

Prison conditions after the war were terrible. They took away everything except the clothes we were wearing. The food was bad. They took away our soap and shampoo and I contracted a skin disease. I took cold showers because they turned off the hot water. They closed the Cantina and did not allow us to take a break outside. After the war started I was transferred to Damoun prison, inside Israel, and I was released from there. I did not have any family visits and I did not make phone calls home. I only saw my father when he attended my hearings. 

 

On the day of my release the area intelligence officer met with me. He told me he was going to execute me and no one would know what had happened. He told me he was going to come to Nablus himself and kill me. He made me feel I was a dangerous terrorist. Then he told me he would arrest me at a checkpoint and that I was not allowed to leave the Nablus area. Since my release, I have not left Nablus.

 

I was released on 3 November 2023. That morning guards raided the cell and beat us up. I was beaten up very badly. I still have marks on my back. Ever since that time I have been suffering from health issues including fits. My father, my brother and my brother-in-law came to pick me up. When I told them I was threatened with arrest, my father decided not to drive me through Huwwara checkpoint. Instead he drove through Beita checkpoint. 

 

Unfortunately, the soldier at Beita checkpoint checked our car and then when he saw my name on a list he pulled me out of the car while shouting “terrorist...terrorist”. He tied my hands behind my back with four plastic ties on top of each other. The ties were very tight and painful. Then he banged my head against the car and struck me with the back of his gun. The other soldiers beat up my father and brother and brother-in-law. 

 

We were held at the checkpoint from around 2:00 a.m. until around 6:00 a.m. During that time the soldiers made me kneel down with my hands tied and raised behind my head. I was in such pain that I told myself I should consider myself dead. I could not believe it when we finally made it home. I don’t go to school anymore and I don’t work, there is nothing for me to do and I feel my life has come to an end.