I was going home from school to prepare for my exams at around 11:00 a.m. At the time there were clashes with Israeli soldiers in the area and one of the soldiers ordered me to stop but I kept walking. He then shot live bullets in my direction and I started to run. I ran a short distance but then I tripped and fell to the ground and the soldiers grabbed me. 

 

A soldier lifted me up and dragged me towards a military jeep. The soldiers moved away very quickly because they were being pelted with stones by the young men who were in the area. When we got to the jeep a soldier tied my hands to the back with three plastic ties: one on each wrist and another connecting the two. The ties were very tight and painful and left marks on my wrists. Then he pushed me into the back of a jeep and allowed me to sit on a seat. Inside the jeep the soldiers kicked and slapped me and called me names and said rude words about me. The jeep drove to the nearby checkpoint where I was left on a chair for a short while. 

 

Then I was taken to the police station at the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba where I was blindfolded before being put in a shipping container. They made me sit next to a pile of ammunition and the soldiers around me were tense. I was left there for about five hours and I was not given any food or water but I was allowed to use the toilet. 

 

After about five hours I was taken to the settlement itself where the soldiers picked up another detainee. Then they took the two of us to Etzion police station. On the way soldiers swore at me and called me "a fucker". I was left by the gate for about an hour and then the interrogator came by, removed the ties and the blindfold and spoke gently to me. He wanted to befriend me so that I would relax and give him the information that he wanted. I did not really trust him.

 

Then he took me to an interrogation room. He showed me an official document with my father’s photo printed on it. Then he called my father and told him I was in detention. Then he told my father to appoint me a lawyer. 

 

The interrogator then showed me a document written in Arabic and Hebrew about my rights, including my right to silence. He did not call a lawyer for me. Then he started to question me. He told me three soldiers had testified against me and told him I was throwing stones. I denied the accusation. Then he told me a soldier was hit by a stone and a wing mirror on a military jeep was broken. I continued to deny the accusation.  

 

Then he wanted me to tell him the names of the boys who were throwing stones at soldiers. I told him I did not recognize them because they were all masked. He was calm and treated me well, I think because I was small in size and he thought I was younger than I actually was. He told me it was better for me to confess because then he would send me home. He questioned me for about three hours. He told me he had video evidence against me. When I asked him to show me the video he refused. 

 

Then he told me I had to confess because he needed a reason to send me to prison. I later found out that when I refused to confess he wrote down I had confessed to throwing three stones. At the end of the interrogation he asked me to sign a document written in Hebrew. When I refused to sign he told me if I did he would send me home within two days. 

 

After the interrogation I was taken to Ofer prison where I was strip searched before being taken to section 13. I arrived there at around 1:00 a.m. Two days later I was taken to the military court. 

 

My parents did not attend my first court hearing because they were not informed and my detention was extended. I had five more hearings. At the last one, which was about six weeks before I was released, I was sentenced in a plea bargain to four months in prison and fined NIS 4,000. I was also given another two months in prison suspended for two years. I accepted the deal based on my lawyer’s advice.

 

I spent all my prison sentence at Ofer where I attended classes in Arabic, Hebrew and Mathematics. The lessons were not useful because the level was very basic. I was a good student before I was arrested and was hoping to get a good average in my high school exams, now I am not sure. My father applied for a permit to visit me in prison but he was rejected, so I did not have any family visits. I was allowed to call home from a telephone provided by the prison authorities once every two weeks, sometimes less.

 

I was released at Ofer gate on 2 February 2023. The prison authorities did not give me back my school bag which I had when I was arrested. All my books and school supplies were in it. To replace them I would need at least NIS 800.  I went with another prisoner’s family to Al Ram where my father met me and took me home. I arrived home at around midnight. I did not sleep all night that night because I was very happy to be home and too excited.