I was with a friend on a hill opposite the settlement of Pisagot at around 7:30 p.m. There were no clashes with Israeli soldiers at the time. Suddenly a group of six soldiers surrounded us. I think they were laying an ambush for someone. One of the soldiers fired at me and my friend from a distance of about 30 meters.  A bullet penetrated my body just below my heart. My friend received a fatal injury and died a short while later.

 

My friend was taken in an Israeli ambulance while I waited for about 20 minutes before another ambulance took me to hospital. While waiting on the ground I was bleeding heavily. One of the soldiers asked me to stand up and I couldn’t; I was not able to move my legs. At that point I realised I was paralysed from the waist down.

 

The soldiers verbally abused me during this time. One of them called me "a son of a whore". Another kicked me on my wound and caused me a lot of pain. I felt deep internal pain and I felt something was seriously wrong with me.

 

Later a Palestinian ambulance arrived at the scene but the Israeli soldiers refused to allow the Palestinian paramedics to take me. Shortly afterwards an Israeli ambulance arrived. The soldiers put me on a stretcher but did not hold it properly and I fell off the stretcher. I finally made it into the ambulance where I passed out. I did not regain consciousness until 20 days later. The doctors put me in a medically-induced coma for that time. 

 

I later found out I had multiple surgeries during that time. They removed part of my stomach because it was badly damaged, they also removed 7 cm of my intestines. I was told that two vertebrae in my back were affected and my spinal cord damaged. I was paralysed. I needed a lot of blood because I lost so much while waiting for the ambulance.

 

Twenty days later I regained consciousness. I opened my eyes and saw a doctor who spoke to me in Arabic. He told me they were going to operate on me again to insert platinum parts in my back to stabilise the damaged vertebrae. 

 

I spent 25 days in hospital. After I gained consciousness, an interrogator in Israeli police uniform came and questioned me. He did not call a lawyer for me and did not inform me of my right to silence. He asked me what had happened and I told him everything. Then he told me I was accused of endangering the security of the area and throwing a Molotov cocktail. I was still under the effect of anesthetics and did not have much energy. I denied the accusations and told him I was with my friend and did not do anything wrong. The interrogator was calm and did not threaten me. 

 

The questioning lasted for about 15 minutes. When it was over the interrogator read me a statement in Arabic and then asked me to sign the document he read from. I signed because what he read was identical to what I had told him. 

 

A few days after the interrogation a lawyer visited me. He introduced himself and told me he was going to represent me. I was still feeling week. He told me he was going to tell my parents he had visited me. 

 

After spending 25 days in hospital I was transferred to the clinic at Ramle prison, inside Israel, where all the injured detainees are held. It was a horrible place full of people with serious injuries. I spent about four months there. 

 

During my time in Ramle I had six military court hearings. At the last hearing the military judge decided to release me based on a plea bargain in which I had to confess to attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail. The deal was if I confessed the judge would sentence me to the time I had already spent in detention and would send me home on the same day. I immediately accepted because I wanted to go home in order to complete my medical treatment. The judge also made my parents pay a fine of NIS 1,000 and imposed a suspended sentence of one-and-a-half years in prison suspended for three years. 

 

After 7 October 2023, conditions in prison became unbearable. They took away everything we had, blankets, pillows, forks and spoons. They closed the prison shop and gave us unappetising food in small quantities which kept getting smaller and smaller by the day. For me things were especially bad because I spent the whole time on a wheel chair. 

 

I was released on 26 February 2024. On the day when I was released I was painfully handcuffed to the front with metal handcuffs and I was also shackled even though I was paralysed from the waist down. I was taken to a cell where I spent about two hours waiting. The cell was so small, there was barely enough space for my wheel chair. Then I was taken in an ambulance to Beit Sira checkpoint where a Palestinian ambulance was waiting for me. My mother and brothers were waiting for me on the other side of the checkpoint together with some of my friends. 

 

I was immediately taken to a hospital in Ramallah where I spent two more weeks.  During this time, I was allowed to go home every now and then. At the Ramallah hospital I was told that the Israeli doctors had accidentally caused damage to one of my urethras. Until today I have an external urine bag attached to one of my kidneys. 

 

I am still undergoing treatment. Doctors tell me my ability to walk might improve but I have not seen any progress yet. My life has been shattered overnight and I lost my best friend. I had spent three days at university before this incident, but since then I have not been able to go back.