I was on my way to the playground to play football with my friends at around 4:00 p.m. when I saw some boys throwing stones at Israeli soldiers on the main road.

 

Shortly afterwards a military jeep entered the camp and chased me and my friends and started to fire live bullets at us. I was terrified and started to run as fast as I could. Then I got tired as I suffer from shortness of breath and my shoes got stuck in mud. I slowed down thinking the soldiers were not behind me but a group of soldiers immediately surrounded me and grabbed me. There were so many soldiers, maybe 50 or so.

 

When they first captured me a soldier sarcastically told me to lie down to rest then he made me open up my arms and then stepped on my right arm and fractured it. I was in severe pain. Another soldier punched me in the face on my right eye and also broke my nose which was very painful. My nose still bleeds from time to time nearly five months later.

 

People from the camp saw all this and came to my rescue but the soldiers prevented them from approaching and said they were not going to let go of me until I tell them who was throwing stones. One of the soldiers threatened to "fuck me" if I did not tell him who the boys were and he also threatened to "fuck my sister and mother" if I did not co-operate.

 

Shortly afterwards a Palestinian ambulance arrived at the scene but the soldiers did not allow the paramedics to take me away. Then the soldiers took me to the back of a military jeep where I sat on a seat and a soldier wiped the blood that was coming out of my nose and tried to calm me down.

 

The jeep drove a short distance to the settlement of Kiryat Arba where an Israeli paramedic gave me first aid, tied my fractured arm to my neck to hold it in place and offered me something to eat but I refused. I stayed for about an hour at Kityat Araba.

 

Then I was taken back to the entrance of Al 'Arrub near the military watchtower and my uncle came and had an argument with the soldiers. He cursed and shouted at the soldiers for treating me the way they did.

 

Then a Palestinian ambulance arrived and the staff snatched me and took me away in the ambulance. The soldiers shot at the ambulance as it drove away. When the ambulance got out of sight I was transferred to a private car to make sure the soldiers don’t detain me again. The car took me to a local hospital where I was treated and I spent a night there. The doctors painfully brought my nose back into position, took an X-Ray of my face and arm and then sent me home the following day.

 

This was a terrifying experience and I run home whenever I see soldiers on the streets for fear that they might recognise me and arrest me again.