Israel’s top court rejects 2nd petition to release Awawdeh

A video showing Khalil Awawdeh and the toll his detention has taken on his body was shared on Monday, where he urged the world to stop Israel from detaining Palestinians without charge.

Awawdeh was detained on 27 December last year near Hebron in the southern West Bank [Getty]
Awawdeh was detained on 27 December last year near Hebron in the southern West Bank [Getty]

New Arab Staff, 30 August, 2022

The Israeli Supreme Court has rejected a second petition to release Khalil Awawdeh, a Palestinian prisoner detained without charge by Israeli forces, on the 171st day of his hunger strike to protest his administrative detention.

The Israeli government, judiciary and military continue to illegally practice administrative detention, according to rights group Adalah, and are consequently endangering Awawdah’s life.

Administrative detention is “incarceration without trial or charge, alleging that a person plans to commit a future offense,” according to B’TSelem’s website, a Jerusalem based human rights organisation.

“The systematic violation of the most basic human rights of Palestinians amounts to crimes against humanity, which necessitate immediate international action,” tweeted Adalah on Tuesday. 

A video of Khalil Awawdeh was shared by the Samidoun Network on Twitter on Monday, showing the toll his detention and hunger strike has taken on his body. 

“Oh, free people of the world,” Awahdeh said in the video, “this suffering body, of which nothing remains but skin and bones, does not reflect a weakness and vulnerability of the Palestinian people, but rather is a mirror reflecting the true face of the occupation which claims to be a ‘democratic state’, at a time when it holds a prisoner without any charges in the brutal administrative detention, taking a stand against it, to say: No to administrative detention! No to administrative detention!”

“We are a people who have a just cause that will remain a just cause, and we will always stand against administrative detention, this injustice, even if the skin is gone, even if the bone deteriorates, even if the soul is gone,” he added. 

Awawdeh was detained on 27 December last year near Hebron in the southern West Bank. He has since been abused by prison authorities, and subjected to solitary confinement.

Khalil Awawdeh’s time is running out


Palestinian detainee Khalil Awawdeh

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 30 Aug 2022

Geneva – Palestinian administrative detainee Khalil Awawdeh is suffering from an acute case of dyspnea and severe problems in all his vitals due to his continued hunger strike. His time is rapidly running out, Euro-Med Monitor said in a statement.

Awawdeh's health condition has become more critical than ever as he has been on hunger strike since 3 March (more than 170 days) in protest of the Israeli authorities’ refusal to release him.

The detainee emphasized that his continued detention, given his deteriorating health, means he is sentenced to a slow death.

Awawdeh's case requires immediate intervention from all parties involved to preserve his life and end his ongoing suffering since his administrative detention on 27 December 2021.

   The suffering of Palestinian detainee Khalil Awawdeh from severe breathing difficulties clearly indicates that his life could end at any moment   

Nour Olwan, Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Media Officer

Today, the Israeli Supreme Court will hear an appeal by Awawdeh's lawyer to release him, based on a medical report documenting his significant deterioration in recent days.

The wife of Awawdeh, who lies at the Israeli Assaf Harofeh hospital, told the Euro-Medi Monitor team that her husband has major breathing problems, a sharp drop in haemoglobin and blood sugar levels, and he is unable to speak, walk, or move his limbs. Moreover, he suffers from a significant decline in awareness and cognition and severe weight loss.

Following his arrest last year, an Israeli court issued a six-month administrative detention order against Awawdeh, which was later extended for another four months.

On 19 August, an Israeli court froze the administrative detention order against him but refused to release him, meaning he could be transferred from the hospital back to the prison if his health improves.

Khalil Awawdeh, 40, is from Idhna in the Hebron governorate in the southern West Bank. He has four daughters, the oldest of whom is nine years old and the youngest is one and a half.

Following a widely practised policy of administrative detention in the Palestinian territories, Israeli authorities arbitrarily confiscate the freedom of Palestinian civilians. As of August, the number of administrative detainees has surpassed 720.

Administrative detainees are held for months or years without indictment, and lawyers are frequently denied access to the evidence the court relies on for extending detention orders. The evidence is allegedly classified intelligence information, in blatant violation of fair trial guarantees and conditions.

Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Israel in 1991, prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention and states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.”

Nour Olwan, Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Media Officer, said, “The suffering of Palestinian detainee Khalil Awawdeh from severe breathing difficulties clearly indicates that his life could end at any moment, and warns of the need to take all possible measures to save his life as soon as possible.”

“It appears that the Israeli authorities are purposefully prolonging Awawdeh's suffering, even if it puts his life in danger, to thwart attempts to rebel against the policy of administrative detention and discourage Palestinian detainees from carrying out protests,” she added.

Olwan warned that if urgent steps to save Awawdeh's life are not taken, he will join the list of about 228 other Palestinians who have died in Israeli prisons since 1967, more than 70 of whom died as a result of health deterioration and the policy of medical neglect in prisons.

Israeli authorities must immediately release Palestinian detainee Khalil Awawdeh, end his administrative detention, and provide him with all necessary medical care in a manner that ensures his safety and eliminates the danger to his life.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention must actively pursue the issue of administrative detention in Palestinian territories, using all available means to pressure Israel to end this arbitrary policy.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

Photos of Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike raise concerns


A protest in solidarity with Khalil Awawdeh, a Palestinian prisoner who is on hunger strike, 1 August 2022 [Mahmoud Nasser/ApaImages]

Middle East Monitor, August 29, 2022

Photos of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawdeh, who has been held in Israeli administrative detention without charges, went viral on social media yesterday, raising concerns about the deterioration of his health.

The pictures showed Awawda, 40, with a slender body resembling a skeleton as a result of his hunger strike, which has been ongoing for the 169th day successively.

Awawdeh is from the town of Ithna, west of Hebron. He has been on hunger strike for more than six months in protest against his administrative detention by the Israeli authorities.


Photos of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawdeh, who has been held in Israeli administrative detention without charges, went viral on social media yesterday, raising concerns about the deterioration of his health [Al Watan]

Earlier this month, an Israeli court suspended Awawdeh’s detention to allow him to receive medical care, citing his failing health.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club said that the decision to freeze Awawdeh’s detention based on medical data and reports by the hospital indicate that his life is in danger. But if his health condition improves and he decides to leave the hospital, his administrative detention will resume immediately, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club added.

EU calls for release of Palestinian hunger striker Awawdeh, Al Jazeera, 29 Aug 2022
 

Giant eye murals bear witness to Palestinians in Jerusalem

Murals that are part of the public art project 'I Witness Silwan' depicting the eyes of local and international figures, including George Floyd, a Black American killed by police, top right, in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Eyes are always open in this flashpoint district. Now, new eyes emerged; they were painted on the walls of the decaying Palestinian homes. The eye murals, and graffiti of Palestinian symbols, are so giant that make you feel they are watching you wherever you walk in the neighborhood. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
Murals that are part of the public art project ‘I Witness Silwan’ depicting the eyes of local and international figures, including George Floyd, a Black American killed by police, top right, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

Associated Press, August 27, 2022

JERUSALEM — A group of artists has filled a Palestinian area of east Jerusalem with paintings of large, wide-open eyes. The murals are a reminder that all eyes are on the neighborhood of Silwan, a flashpoint where Palestinians say Israeli forces and settlers are working to drive them out of their homes.

Palestinian children walk between murals that are part of the public art project 'I Witness Silwan', in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. At right are the eyes of Silwan Community Member Nihad Siyam; at left, eyes inside two poppies, which Palestinians call their national flower. Eyes are always open in this flashpoint district. Now, new eyes emerged; they were painted on the walls of the decaying Palestinian homes. The eye murals, and graffiti of Palestinian symbols, are so giant that make you feel they are watching you wherever you walk in the neighborhood. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
Palestinian children walk between murals in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

The eye murals are so giant that they make you feel they are watching you wherever you walk in the neighborhood. Many are painted on the walls of decaying Palestinian homes alongside national symbols.

“The staring eyes say to people that we see them and they should see us too," says Jawad Siyam, director of Madaa-Silwan Creative Center.

“We want to say that we are here — we love our land and our home.”

Since 2015, the center has worked with U.S. artists to create the murals and maintain them. In total, they have made about 2,000 feet of graffiti and paintings.

Israeli border police stand on a street lined with Palestinian homes painted in murals including one depicting goldfinches and an olive tree, that are part of the public art project 'I Witness Silwan' in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Palestinian and American artists have painted giant murals in an east Jerusalem district. The art project is meant to draw attention to the suffering of Palestinian residents of Silwan, a neighborhood near the Old City, who face Israeli arrests, home raids, demolitions, and the threat of evictions. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
Israeli border police stand on a street lined with Palestinian homes painted in murals including one depicting goldfinches and an olive tree, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

The “I Witness Silwan” art project depicts the eyes of Palestinian and international leaders and influencers. It also features symbols such as the goldfinch and poppy, which Palestinians call their national flower.

Organizers say the art project aims at drawing attention to the displacements the Palestinians face in this neighborhood near the Old City of Jerusalem.

Murals that are part of the public art project 'I Witness Silwan' depicting the eyes of local and international figures are painted on houses in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Eyes are always open in this flashpoint district. Now, new eyes emerged; they were painted on the walls of the decaying Palestinian homes. The eye murals, and graffiti of Palestinian symbols, are so giant that make you feel they are watching you wherever you walk in the neighborhood. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
Murals on houses in Silwan, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

Israel occupied Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the holy city as its indivisible capital. The Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of their future state. Peace talks between the two sides ground to a halt years ago.

The Silwan project says it aims to counter Israeli settler groups that work to boost the Jewish presence in predominantly Arab or Palestinian areas of the contested holy city.

An Israeli border police officer watches Israeli Jewish settlers walk on a street lined with Palestinian homes painted in murals in the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. A group of artists has filled a Palestinian area of east Jerusalem with paintings of large, wide-open eyes. The murals are a reminder that all eyes are on the neighborhood of Silwan, a flashpoint where Palestinians say Israeli forces and settlers are working to drive them out of their homes. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
An Israeli border police officer watches Israeli Jewish settlers walk on a street lined with Palestinian homes, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem face Israeli arrests, home raids, demolitions, and the threat of evictions. Israeli rights group B’Tselem says Israel is “enjoying far-reaching powers with no accountability for their actions" in running the lives of Palestinians in the area.

A view of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound above the Silwan neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. A group of artists has filled a Palestinian area of east Jerusalem with paintings of large, wide-open eyes. The murals are a reminder that all eyes are on the neighborhood of Silwan, a flashpoint where Palestinians say Israeli forces and settlers are working to drive them out of their homes. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)
A view of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound above Silwan, Aug. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/ Mahmoud Illean)

Free Ahmad Manasra: Demand his immediate release

For the past seven years, since he was only 13, Ahmad Manasra has been imprisoned by Israel, where Israeli authorities have abused him, tortured him, and are now holding him under solitary confinement.

The Israeli Prison Authorities have postponed the court hearing for his solitary confinement for the third time, to Tuesday, August 16. The United Nations states that solitary confinement longer than 15 days is torture — and Ahmad has spent seven months in solitary confinement.

Ahmad never should have been unjustly imprisoned in the first place. Now he has been subjected to the Israeli military and prisons’ brutal violence over and over with severe consequences on his physical and mental health.

Raise your voice now to demand Ahmad’s immediate release! Use this click-to-tweet tool and tell your members of Congress to speak up to #FreeAhmadManasra.

JUNE 28, 2022
URGENT CALL TO ACTION

FREE SAMI HURAINI, YOUTH OF SUMUD LEADER ARRESTED BY ISRAEL

As Israel threatens the homes of 1,000+ Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, Israel’s occupying army is trying to silence a leading youth organizer. Speak up!

RAISE YOUR VOICE:
• Uplift Youth of Sumud’s post and their work on Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook.
• Share these posts decrying Sami’s arrest by PIPD & USCPR.
• Share this 2 minute clip of Sami & his sister Sameeha’s demands for justice.

Sami needs your solidarity: Tweet #FreeSamiHuraini now! #DefendMasaferYatta

SAMPLE TWEET:

    URGENT: Israel’s army just arrested prominent Palestinian activist Sami Huraini of Masafer Yatta, known for leading resistance with @YouthOfSumud against Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes.

For years, Sami Huraini and his community organization Youth of Sumud have defended his community, Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills, from relentless Israeli settler and military violence simply for living in their homeland. For instance, last fall Sami decried an Israeli government-backed pogrom in which settlers fractured the skull of a 3-year old Palestinian child. And last month, Sami Huraini woke up to Israeli soldiers invading his village. Soldiers now bring tanks, guns, military bulldozers, and attack helicopters into their communities daily as part of a deliberate plan, backed by Israel’s colonial court system, to push more than 1,000 Palestinians out of their homes to steal their land for exclusive use by Israeli settlers and the occupying army who enable their invasion of the Palestinian homeland.

Recently, Israel escalated its attacks against Sami and his local community organization: two weeks ago, Israel’s occupying army issued a demolition notice on their Youth of Sumud community center. Then today, June 28, 2022, they arrested Sami. Like every Palestinian, he expects no rights or due process in courts with a more than 99% conviction rate. Israel’s carceral system is extraordinarily cruel, for instance also today denying early release for Ahmad Manasra, who has been incarcerated by Israel since age 13 and endured torture. Justice for Sami depends on international outcry. The fight continues until Sami, Ahmad, and every Palestinian prisoner is freed to their loved ones’ arms.

LEARN MORE:
Instagram live with Sami & Sameeha Huraini
Background on Youth of Sumud
Background on Sami’s organizing

June 14, 2022
No Way to Treat a Child Webinar

Please join the #nowaytotreatachild campaign co-leaders from Defense for Children International – Palestine and American Friends Service Committee for a webinar on June 14 at 8 p.m. Eastern / 5 p.m. Pacific time.

The webinar will share updates on Palestinian children’s human rights, including updates on Palestinian children who have been detained, killed, used as human shields, and had their homes demolished by Israeli authorities. We’ll also discuss how to approach our advocacy work in the long term to ensure it is sustainable while keeping grassroots supporters and elected officials engaged.

Background

Approximately 2.9 million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank, of which around 45 percent are children under the age of 18.

Palestinian children in the West Bank, like adults, face arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment under an Israeli military detention system that denies them basic rights.

Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law.

Israel applies civilian criminal law to Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military courts.

Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.

Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process,” according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations.

Children typically arrive to interrogation bound, blindfolded, frightened, and sleep deprived.

Children often give confessions after verbal abuse, threats, physical and psychological violence that in some cases amounts to torture.

Israeli military law provides no right to legal counsel during interrogation, and Israeli military court judges seldom exclude confessions obtained by coercion or torture.

    ABOUT #NOWAYTOTREATACHILD’S WEBINARS AND ZOOM:
    For this webinar, we will be using the Zoom platform. Additional instructions and details for joining the webinar will be shared by email with individuals that have registered.

    WHEN
    June 14, 2022 at 8:00pm – 9pm
    WHERE
    Online via Zoom
    CONTACT
    Brad Parker · info@nowaytotreatachild.org

    Register for the Webinar

Palestinian Administrative Detainees Boycotting Court Proceedings

Read B’Tselem’s full paper on boycotting military courts

Dear Friends,

It’s a show the Israeli regime has been staging for years, by now casting thousands of Palestinians in it against their will. Week after week, month after month, administrative detainees are led handcuffed into courtrooms and hear what military prosecutors and judges have to say about them – and especially, what they do not say.

Act I: The prosecutor, a uniformed soldier, sternly proclaims that “the detainee is a threat to area security”. The judge, also a uniformed soldier, nods in assent. The defense counsel asks – why? Where is the evidence? Why not indict him? The prosecutor replies that all the answers are in the classified material the Israel Security Agency (ISA) submitted to the court. The judge nods.

Act II: The detainee and his defense counsel are taken out of the courtroom. The judge examines the ISA material alone. It is all classified. The detainee and his counsel are brought back in. The judge nods again and signs off on the detention order, at most shortening it by a few weeks. The detainee is taken back to prison, still handcuffed, still clueless as to why the judge nodded and why did he decide that he should remain in detention.

Act III (a few months later): The detainee has served the time stipulated in the order and is preparing to go home. Just then, the guard hands him another detention order. The show begins again: handcuffs, a court hearing, classified material, a nod from the judge, and back to prison. Still without knowing why, or until when.

And so it goes. One detention follows another, orders are issued and renewed, and the judge approves them based on classified material. Time and time again.

Over the years, administrative detainees have tried to protest these detentions. There were petitions and campaigns, several detainees went on hunger strikes, some of them almost to the point of death. Nothing helped. The Israeli regime carries on with more and more detention orders, and more and more administrative detainees.

Then, the detainees decided to quit the show. Since the beginning of 2022, Palestinian administrative detainees have boycotted the court hearings in their cases. After all, the show was never meant for their benefit, it was only meant to legitimize the detentions and deflect criticism. See, it’s not only the regional military commander who signed the order, but an actual judge!

Over the last four months, Palestinian administrative detainees have not attended court hearings in their cases. One of them explained: “It is my right not to be present in so-called court hearings, which are an arbitrary procedure controlled by the occupation. Administrative detention is unlawful, and the occupation regime’s intelligence services and so-called legal system are illegitimate. I do not recognize the lawfulness of these legal proceedings, of the court and of administrative detention.”

And then it became apparent that despite appearances, the detainees do not play the lead role or even a supporting one in their own hearings. The Israeli regime does not need them to keep the show running. They are silent extras. For four months now, the show has gone on as usual, minus the detainees and their lawyers. The military prosecutor makes his statements, the judge nods and approves the order.

Administrative detention is a cruel, draconian measure. Detainees suffer not only incarceration in rough conditions, cut off from their family, friends and daily life, but also unbearable uncertainty regarding why they are there and for how long. Yet Israel uses this measure extensively against Palestinians, with the ongoing approval of legal advisors, military judges, and the Supreme Court.

All these seals of approval do not render Israel’s use of administrative detention lawful or just. As is the case in a myriad of issues concerning Israel’s regime of Jewish supremacy over Palestinians, here too, the Israeli legal system does not serve justice nor seeks to do so. It seeks only to represent the interests of the apartheid regime and to perpetuate it in the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Sincerely,
Yael Stein
Director of Research

April 12, 2022
Webinar: The Israeli Military Detention System

    11 am Central

Palestinian Prisoners Day is April 17 and this month’s No Way to Treat a Child webinar will discuss the current and historical practices used by Israeli forces to detain and imprison Palestinian children. We will also share ways to build support in Congress for Palestinian human rights. 

Joint project of Defense for Children International-Palestine and the American Friends Service Committee.

March 30, 2022
Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israeli Detention

8:30 pm Central Online

Hosted by Defense for Children International-Palestine; Amnesty International; Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East/Okanagan.

An online screening of the film Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israel’s Military Detention System followed by a debriefing and question and answer with Shaina Low, the Advocacy Officer with Defense for Children International-Palestine.

Registration and More Info

“In solidarity with the Palestinian detainees, I refuse to show up in court!”

Judge issues an arrest warrant against Israeli anti-Apartheid activist Neta Golan

For Immediate Release
For more information : pressinquiriesantiapartheid@gmail.com, +972-(0)54-2340749

21.2.2022, Ashdod, Israel/Palestine. An arrest warrant was issued by the magistrate court in Ashdod against Neta Golan, an Israeli antizionist activist, following her refusal to appear before the Israeli court in solidarity with Palestinian administrative detainees.

Neta Golan, an Israeli citizen and anti-apartheid activist, wrote a letter to the court in which she stated: “I do not intend to appear at the hearing to which I have been summoned regarding an indictment against me. This act is in solidarity with the 500 Palestinian administrative detainees who are currently detained without a time limit, without an indictment and without their or their lawyer’s access to the suspicions against them, who have not attended the hearings about their cases since January 1st. I join the detainees’ demand that Israel stop its extensive and cynical use of administrative detention against Palestinians. The court that allows me rights as a Jew by virtue of my ethnic origin, and does not offer the same rights to indigenous people of another origin, is part of a discriminatory system that aims to encourage the preservation of a Jewish majority between the river and the sea. The same system commits criminal acts for the purpose of maintaining a regime of control by one racial group over another racial group and their systematic oppression. This is the definition of the crime of apartheid. And I’m not willing to cooperate with this crime.”

The Judge responded by issuing an arrest warrant for Golan’s arrest and set a new hearing date for 30.5.22

“If the court imposes a prison sentence against me, during the imprisonment no physical violence will be used against me and at the end of the detention period I will be released. Even these basic rights are not given to Palestinians; for example, the two million people imprisoned for the last fifteen years in the besieged Gaza Strip, including about a million children under the age of fifteen who were born and have lived all their lives under siege and under constant threat of deadly violence. Tragically, unlike me they cannot expect to be released soon,” Neta Golan wrote.

The court case is following Neta Golan’s peaceful protest at the Gaza border as part of “Return Solidarity”, a group of Israeli anti-Zionist activists that were demonstrating at the barrier fence besieging the Gaza strip in solidarity with the Great March of Return in 2020.

For assistance: info@gush-shalom.org

Breaking the Silence on Omar As’ad’s Autopsy

Breaking the Silence, 1/27/22

An autopsy conducted following the recent death of 78 year old Omar As’ad found “bruises on his head, redness on his wrists from being bound, and bleeding in his eyelids from being tightly blindfolded,” and concluded that the cause of death was a “sudden cessation of the heart muscle caused by psychological tension due to the external violence he was exposed to.”



 

Omar As’ad was a casualty of the occupation. He didn’t have to die that night. But he did, because in the eyes of the occupation no Palestinian can be truly innocent. Everyone living under occupation is subject to the IDF’s ‘demonstration of presence’ strategy, and if that means setting up a flying checkpoint, arresting and throwing a 78 year old man into an abandoned building site in the dead of night – so be it. As’ad’s death was a natural consequence of our approach to governing the occupied territories. Tragically, it’s not a bug; it’s a feature.

More: Haaretz Articles on the Killing

Israeli soldiers blindfolded and gagged elderly Palestinian American later found dead

Details of an army investigation obtained by Israeli media indicate troops didn’t seek aid for the unresponsive detainee, but none are likely to be prosecuted.


Mourners attend the funeral of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American who was found dead after being detained and handcuffed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Jiljilya. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post, January 23, 2022

JERUSALEM — A leaked summary of an Israeli investigation into the death of a Palestinian American in the West Bank after Israeli troops detained him this month suggested that no soldiers were likely to be prosecuted despite investigators confirming that the man was dragged from his car, blindfolded and handcuffed and then fell silent while being held at a construction site.

The leaks, reported Sunday by Ynet, the online service of the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, included findings that the soldiers never sought medical aid for the man, 78-year-old Omar Assad, even though a military medic was at hand. Five soldiers, including a company commander and a platoon commander, told investigators that they thought Assad had simply fallen asleep and that he had demonstrated no signs of being ill. The investigation is being conducted by the Israel Defense Forces.

“We did not identify any signs of distress on him: a cry for help or, for example, the gripping of his hand to his chest,” the soldiers said, according to the report. They also confirmed that Assad was gagged and had his hands tied at the time, the report said.

But two witnesses who were detained at the same time have told The Washington Post that Assad was unconscious and not breathing when the soldiers left them in the courtyard of an under-construction house.

One of the detainees, Mraweh Abdulrahman, said he saw one soldier seem to squat on Assad and check his condition before consulting with other troops. One of the soldiers then cut loose one of the plastic ties on Assad’s wrists before all the troops departed.

Assad, a former Milwaukee grocery store owner, suffered from a coronary condition. He died of an apparent heart attack, according to Islam Abu Zaher, a physician who tried to resuscitate him at the scene almost immediately after the soldiers left. Assad’s face was blue when Zaher arrived, the doctor said, suggesting that he had been without oxygen for 15 to 20 minutes.

Palestinian officials said Sunday that they expect to release the results of an autopsy early next week.

A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the leaked summary but denied that any conclusions have been reached.

“It should be clarified that no decisions have yet been made regarding the investigation case,” the IDF said in a WhatsApp message Sunday.

The Ynet report said the final decision on any actions against the soldiers would be up to the chief military prosecutor. But the leaked summary suggested that none of the soldiers or officers “would be indicted, nor have they been suspended.” Ynet did not say how it obtained the information.

The U.S. State Department has called on Israel to conduct a “thorough investigation.” Assad spent most of his life in the American Midwest and raised five children in the United States before moving back to the occupied West Bank about a decade ago.

“We are deeply concerned by media reports of the circumstances surrounding Mr. As’ad’s death and are gathering additional information about the incident,” the U.S. Embassy said last week in an emailed statement.

Military lawyers representing the soldiers said they were not responsible for Assad’s death, Ynet said.

“The Palestinian was lawfully detained during the operation in accordance with procedures,” they said, according to the report. “His death is not related to the conduct of the military force.”
But human rights groups condemned the suggestion that no military members would be held accountable. The Israeli group B’Tselem said the IDF probe was shaping up as a “whitewash.”

“The investigation will be over soon, the army will exonerate the soldiers and say their actions were in line with what’s expected,” B’Tselem said in a statement Sunday.

The Ynet report describes a late-night encounter that unfolded very much as the Palestinian witnesses described, except for the troops’ assertion that Assad was fine when they left.

The report said soldiers had set up two surprise checkpoints in Assad’s home village of Jiljilya, just north of Ramallah, stopping vehicles at random to find any weapons or Palestinians wanted for questioning.

The soldiers described stopping Assad, who his family said was returning from playing cards at a cousin’s house less than a mile from his home. He did not have his U.S. passport or any other ID with him.

The soldiers said Assad “looked at least 20 years younger” than his age and that he protested loudly that he was not a terrorist, according to the report. Concerned that his shouts would tip off others to the presence of the roadblock, the report said, at least two soldiers “seized him by force and led him to the abandoned house, and even covered his mouth.”

They handcuffed and blindfolded Assad, the report said, and placed him on a chair. The witnesses, however, said Assad was left lying on stone pavers.

At one point, Assad began to look a little “stoned” or confused, the soldiers told investigators, according to the report. The soldier in charge of guarding him referred to Assad as “the one falling asleep.”

The soldiers said they decided to leave after briefly interrogating the other Palestinian detainees, who turned out not to have weapons or outstanding warrants against them. The soldiers then cut the tie around one of Assad’s wrists, removed the blindfold and left him in a chair, according to the report.

But Abdulrahman and another detainee, Abdulaziz Hamouda, said Assad was lying on the ground when the Israeli team left. They went to his side and found him not breathing.

Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix has written for just about every section of the paper since coming to the Washington Post 20 years ago, reporting from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and most corners of the United States.

Our Decision is Freedom — ‘No’ to Administrative Detention

Palestinian Administrative Detainees Declare Boycott of Israeli Military Courts

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, January 20, 2022

Palestinian Administrative Detainees Letter [English].pdf

In 2021, the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime deployed extraordinary violence against the Palestinian people, a key feature of which has been the expansion of the mass arbitrary arrests and detention of Palestinian men, women, and children. Under this carceral framework, Israeli occupation authorities have particularly increased their reliance on administrative detention, a procedure in which detainees are held without charge or trial based on “secret information” for an indefinite time. By the end of 2021, the Israeli military commander in the West Bank region issued 1595 administrative detention orders, including the renewal of previous orders and issuing new ones.

The Israeli occupation has increasingly employed administrative detention as an arbitrary, coercive, and punitive measure of torture against hundreds of Palestinian detainees. Such expansion comes amid and in parallel with the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime’s systematic harassment campaign against Palestinian civil society, most recently with the criminalization of six leading Palestinian civil society organizations (CSOs) in October 2021. Throughout, the Israeli military judicial system plays an integral role in facilitating the expansion of administrative detention, and more broadly, in sustaining and feeding the establishment of a comprehensive Israeli apartheid apparatus over the occupied territories.

Israeli occupation authorities increasingly rely on administrative detention to muzzle Palestinian human rights defenders, student and political activists, and target children. Often, administrative detention is leveraged to punish Palestinians undertaking outstanding hunger strikes in protest of their administrative detention, including Hisham Abu Hawash, or to harass further and coerce released Palestinian political prisoners, as is the most recent case with lawyer Bashir Khairi. In 2021, six Palestinian children, three Palestinian women, and eight Palestinian Legislative Council members were held under administrative detention.

On 20 December 2021, Palestinian administrative detainees, 500 in total, announced their collective and comprehensive boycott of Israeli military courts, to begin 1 January 2022, under the campaign ‘Our Decision is Freedom… No to Administrative Detention.[1] This comes in light of the developments mentioned above, which represent a dangerous approach by the Israeli occupation to repress all facets of Palestinian life and struggle for liberty. The boycott includes Israeli military courts at all levels, including courts of first instance, appellate courts, and the Israeli civil High Court. Accordingly, Palestinian administrative detainees will refuse to participate in court procedures and hearings; their legal counsel will no longer attend or participate in the court procedures on their behalf.

In line with the Palestinian administrative detainees’ boycott of Israeli military courts, Addameer echoes the call for solidarity and to demand that local and international human rights institutions and State parties call on the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime to end its policy of administrative detention and release all administrative detainees currently held in Israeli occupation prisons.

The illegality of Israeli military courts goes beyond serious violations of the right to a fair trial—the basis of their establishment and jurisdiction itself is a grave breach of international standards and principles. The Israeli military judicial system is also inherently bound up with the use of ill-treatment and torture against Palestinians, especially during the interrogation process.

Seeking to better the fair trial standards in Israeli military courts is redundant; all efforts should be made to end the trial of Palestinian civilians in Israeli military courts and abolish the Israeli occupation itself. The international community must end its continuous silence and hold the Israeli occupation accountable for the various grave breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law. Such actions are imperative to maintain international peace and justice for the sake of the Palestinian people, including Palestinian political prisoners, the quest for liberty, justice, and dignity.


[1] The letter and call to action written by Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli occupation prisons is attached above.