Jihad Harzallah, 17

I am in the twelfth grade. My brother Nur, is twenty, and studies at Abu Dis University .

Two days ago [Friday, 13 January], I decided to go with Nur to Abu Dis and stay with him for a few days. I am on vacation from school, and I wanted a change of atmosphere and to visit the university. We left Ya'bad around 4:30 in the morning. We took a taxi in which there were five other passengers. We passed a few checkpoints on the way and got to Ramallah about 6:30. From there, we drove to the Qalandiya checkpoint, where we waited for about half an hour. Then the soldiers told us that whoever had come from the northern West Bank would not be allowed to cross the checkpoint. We returned to Ramallah and took a taxi to Abu Dis, via Route 60. There were five other passengers in the taxi. We passed Bir Zeit and the ‘Atara bridge, and got onto Route 60.

When we approached the Ofra settlement, at about 9:00, an army jeep blocked the road. A few meters in front of it was a road sign indicating an army checkpoint, and two soldiers stood on the highway and stopped the taxi we were in. One of the soldiers came over to the car and checked the passengers' identity cards. He was tall, had blond hair, and was wearing a red woolen hat . After he checked the identity cards, he told my brother, two other passengers, who also were from Jenin area, and me to get out of the taxi. We got out and the soldier told the driver to go. The soldier told the four of us to sit down on the ground. We sat down.

After a few seconds passed, the soldier with the red hat came over and grabbed me by the shoulder. He pulled me and said something in Hebrew. I didn't understand what he said, because. I don't understand Hebrew, but I realized that he wanted me to stand up. I got up and he slapped me and said something in Hebrew to the other soldier, who was standing next to him. That soldier was short, had a dark-brown complexion, and was of medium build. I identified the word “problems” and realized that he told the other soldier that I was making problems. The short soldier pushed me toward the jeep, which was about ten meters from us. After we had moved a few meters, he kicked me in the back of my knee. I fell on my back. The soldier with the hat kicked me a few times while I was on the ground, and then grabbed me by the shoulder, picked me up, and took me to the jeep.

He put me into the back of the jeep, which was empty. Two soldiers were sitting in the front. When he put me into the jeep, the two sitting in the front got out and came into the back part of the jeep. One of them was very short. When they got in, they turned off the radio transmitter that was in the back, pushed me onto the floor, and kicked me while I was lying there. One of them sat on my stomach and slapped me hard. I grabbed his hand in an attempt to stop the blows, and he got mad and continued to beat me. He punched me in the left eye, which hurt a lot. Then he got off my stomach and pulled me out of the jeep. He took me back to where my brother and the others were sitting.

Within a minute's time, the soldier with the red hat came over and kicked me. I was lying on the ground and he lifted me up and took me back to the jeep. He put me in the back and the two soldiers who had beaten me previously, beat and kicked me all over my body. One of them used his rifle butt to hit me on the top of my thigh and on my foot. The short soldier gave his mobile phone to the other soldier who took a picture of the short guy beating me. After that, they changed places: the soldier gave the mobile phone to the short soldier, who took a picture of the other soldier beating me.

When they finished beating me, they took me out of the jeep. I saw my father's car, a Mercedes 412, about twenty meters from the jeep. My father was sitting inside. He delivers coal in the Ramallah area. The soldiers sat me next to men I didn't know. I didn't see Nur or the other two men. After a few minutes passed, the shorter soldier of the two who had grabbed me at the beginning came and asked me in Arabic for my name and address. This was the first time that the soldiers spoke to me since they had me get out of the taxi, about thirty to forty minutes earlier. I told him that I was from Y'abed. He asked again, and I told him again that I was from Y'abed. He said, “Are you sure that you are from Y'abed and not from Jenin?” I told him I was sure. He called over to the soldier with the hat and asked him for my ID card. I put my hand on my eye because it hurt a lot, and the soldier with the hat said something to me in Hebrew. I realized that he said he would knock out my other eye if I didn't lower my hand from my eye. Then he pointed to the car and called to my father. Two minutes later, my father went back to the car and said that the soldier said that I had tried to grab his weapon and that this time he would forgive me and not shoot me.

I went with my father to Ramallah. Around 11:00, I got into a taxi to go to Abu Dis via Qalandiya because the drivers said there weren't any problems at the checkpoint. I got to Abu Dis about noon. I sat in my brother's apartment and then, at 6:00 P.M., my brother took me to the doctor because I was hurting all over. The doctor, Riad ‘Ayed, from Abu Dis, examined me and gave me a pain reliever. He said that the pains were from the blows and that I didn't have any other injury.

Jihad Mustafa Khaled Harzalla, 17, is a high school student and a resident of Y’abed, Jenin District. His testimony was give to Karim Jubran at Abu Dis University, on 15 January 2006.