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O<\/span>n the morning<\/u> of October 13, Zaher Ibrahim desperately tried to find his son among the dozens of newly freed Palestinians streaming from Red Cross buses in the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia.<\/p>\n Zaher\u2019s son, Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American, was swept up by Israeli forces during a dawn raid at their home in the village of al-Mazra\u2019a ash-Sharqiya in February. The Israeli military charged Mohammed with throwing a rock and striking a car driven by an Israeli settler, an accusation he and his family deny. While Israel has not publicly provided evidence, Mohammed has spent the last eight months in Israeli prisons awaiting a trial that has been repeatedly postponed. Mohammed has been barred from speaking with his family, who have continued to push for his release. And after learning that he suffered a scabies infection and severe weight loss, Mohammed\u2019s family has begun to fear for his life.<\/p>\n The U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal<\/a> between Hamas and Israel, which freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians from detention, appeared to be the breakthrough Zaher and his wife Mona Ibrahim had so desperately awaited.<\/p>\n On the morning of the releases, Zaher rushed to Beituna and carefully watched the buses empty. Mohammed wasn\u2019t a part of the caravan. Zaher then got word that some of those released were being taken to local hospitals for treatment. He hurried from hospital to hospital. Back at home, Mona prepared to celebrate Mohammed\u2019s return by cooking maqluba \u2014 a pot of rice, vegetables, and meat served upside down \u2014 her son\u2019s favorite dish.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hours later, Zaher returned home alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just waited and waited and waited,\u201d Zaher recalled, \u201cand still waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n The most common charge among children is throwing rocks, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Mohammed Ibrahim is among an alarming number of children overlooked by the ceasefire agreement. More than 300 Palestinian children remain in Israeli prisons, according to Defense for Children International\u2013Palestine. Nearly half are being held without charges \u2014 the highest number since 2008, when DCIP began tracking cases. The rest of the children are serving sentences or, like Mohammed, are still awaiting trial. The most common charge among children is throwing rocks, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. This tally doesn\u2019t include the unknown number of children held inside Israeli military facilities.<\/p>\n While Mohammed\u2019s detention is a single case among many, his story offers a window into Israel\u2019s deadly and unlawful carceral system. Through The Intercept\u2019s interviews with family members and advocates for imprisoned Palestinians, review of medical records, and legal testimony and footage of the Israeli police\u2019s interrogation of Mohammed in February, it became clear that Mohammed\u2019s case fits within the Israeli government\u2019s long-standing patterns of detention, abuse, and deprivation of basic human rights.<\/p>\n Mohammed\u2019s case has received widespread attention over the past week, largely due to his status as an American citizen, but also because of a tireless campaign led by his family. In the U.S., Zaher\u2019s cousin, Zeyad Kadur, has met privately with lawmakers in Congress, alongside parents whose American children were killed by Israeli forces or settlers, calling on the U.S. government to secure Mohammed\u2019s release. In September, the State Department assigned<\/a> a diplomat to handle Mohammed\u2019s case. And on Wednesday, after two days lobbying in D.C. \u2014 Kadur\u2019s second visit to the Capitol in as many months \u2014 27 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter<\/a> calling on U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to exert pressure to free Mohammed.<\/p>\n The campaign arrived as details of Mohammed\u2019s prison conditions came to focus this week with the release of a firsthand testimony<\/a> relayed to a lawyer with DCIP. In the account, Mohammed tells of living in a cell with four bunk beds, shared with at least eight children, forcing some to sleep on the floor. The only items in each cell are thin mattresses, blankets, and a single copy of the Quran, he said.<\/p>\n He and other children are served two meals a day: three small pieces of bread and a spoonful of labneh for breakfast; a small cup of rice and a single sausage with pieces of bread for lunch, he said in the document. Every two to three days, they receive a spoonful of jam and occasionally a small cucumber or tomato. The prison does not serve dinner.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mohammed also recounted the night of his detention. He said Israeli soldiers burst into his home, blindfolded him, and zip-tied his hands, before hauling him into a military vehicle where he lay flat on its metal surface as soldiers beat him with the butts of their rifles. At the Ofer military base, the beating continued, he recalled. Mohammed then told of being taken to a police station where a masked interrogator threatened to instruct soldiers to beat him again if he didn\u2019t comply. \u201cOut of sheer fear, I ultimately confessed,\u201d he said in the testimony.<\/p>\n \u201cIt breaks my heart to say that his case is not exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Such details have begun to spark the outrage of many in Washington and across the world. Advocates for imprisoned Palestinians who have been following the case were disturbed by the alleged abuse Mohammed has suffered at the hands of the Israeli military. But perhaps what has troubled advocates most about Mohammed\u2019s case is how familiar it sounds<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt breaks my heart to say that his case is not exceptional,\u201d said Miranda Cleland, an advocate with DCIP. \u201cHis case is so similar to what we\u2019ve heard from so many Palestinian children and families, not just in the last two years, but in the last 30 years \u2014 this is exactly how the Israeli military targets Palestinian children and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Israel began<\/span> its military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, indefinite detentions have been a tool used to control Palestinians. Palestinians are subject to military law and military courts, where prosecutors and judges are Israeli soldiers and Palestinians lack due process rights. United Nations experts last July called for the dismantling<\/a> of Israel\u2019s military court system, saying that it violates humanitarian international law and cannot be improved. They criticized the role of military judges providing \u201clegal and judicial cover for acts of torture, cruel and degrading treatment against Palestinian detainees\u201d by Israeli soldiers and police. The experts specifically mentioned their concern that such practices extend to children.<\/p>\n The Israeli military declined to comment for this story, referring to the Israeli Prison Service. The IPS and Israeli police did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n The Israeli military court system prosecutes as many as 500 children each year, with a conviction rate of around 99 percent, according to DCIP. The most common charge against Palestinian children in the military court system, like Mohammed\u2019s case, is throwing a rock. Nearly all of the convictions result from a plea deal, which is often the only chance a child has toward being released.<\/p>\n \u201c It\u2019s a collective punishment because it\u2019s also against the family, in order to intimidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, delays in trials and hearings have been increasingly common in military court, and plea deals have been harder to come by, with prosecutors pursuing more aggressive sentencing, said Sahar Francis, a Palestinian human rights attorney who has decades of experience representing Palestinians in Israel\u2019s military courts. Before the outbreak of Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, she said children in similar situations as Mohammed would typically be released on bail and would spend around four to five months in prison. Children are now regularly held for longer periods.<\/p>\n During her 30-year career, Francis came to realize a pattern: Even in cases where children throwing rocks didn\u2019t cause any harm, prosecutors would pursue lengthy sentences. Meanwhile, she noted, cases where Israeli children threw rocks at Palestinians went unpunished.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a huge discrimination policy and it\u2019s intentional \u2014 they know they can affect the whole generation,\u201d Francis said. \u201cThis is why we are saying it\u2019s a collective punishment because it\u2019s also against the family, in order to intimidate, in order to cause fear within other children, that you could be arrested, you could be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2014 and 2015, the Israeli government enacted a slew of laws to further criminalize stone throwing, including harsher sentences and fines, as well as permission for police to fire live ammunition<\/a> at individuals throwing stones, including minors, if officers believe the stones pose a danger to anyone. In its press releases and public statements, the Israeli government regularly labels Palestinians who throw rocks as \u201cterrorists,\u201d even during protests against illegal Israeli settlements<\/a> that are often guarded by heavily armored military units.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throwing stones carries both a tactical and symbolic significance to Palestinian resistance, illustrated by the emblematic photo<\/a> of a Palestinian woman in Beit Sahour throwing stones at Israeli soldiers with one hand while carrying her yellow heels in another during the First Intifada in the 1980s. Another image captured during the Second Intifada in 2000 shows 14-year-old Palestinian boy, Faris Odeh<\/a>, throwing a stone at an Israeli tank. The following day, an Israeli soldier fatally shot Odeh in the neck as he protested the military, transforming Odeh into an international symbol of Palestinian resistance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n An Israeli military<\/span> charge sheet, obtained by the family and reviewed by The Intercept, accuses Mohammed of throwing stones toward Israeli vehicles that were traveling on Highway 60 near the Israeli settlement of Kochav Hashachar. One of the stones, the military alleged, struck and damaged the vehicle. The document stated that the stones endangered the lives of the drivers. The charge sheet cited a military patrol unit that had reported stone-throwing incidents in the area, and mentioned that an Israeli vehicle driven by an Israeli settler was damaged.<\/p>\n Since there have been no court proceedings in Mohammed Ibrahim\u2019s case, it\u2019s unclear whether the Israeli military has evidence to back its charges. He and his family reject Israel\u2019s charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n The military leveled the charges following an interrogation with masked, armed soldiers and no attorney present, which advocates said is a common practice for detained children.<\/p>\n According to footage of the interrogation obtained by The Intercept, Mohammed sat alone at a table on a swiveling chair with a blindfold lowered to his neck. He spoke to an interrogator who was outside the frame. Video of a separate interrogation with another child implicated in the case shows the interrogators are masked.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the six-minute video, which The Intercept translated from Arabic, the interrogator prompts Mohammed to \u201cTell me everything you did, and say it specifically.\u201d At times, the interrogator seems to feed him lines, stating, \u201cTell me: \u2018I went down and I ate, me and my friends, at 8 p.m., we walked, we got into a car.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mohammed responds by saying he and his friends ate and then went for a walk down toward a highway referred to as \u201cIltifafy.\u201d The highway is known as a road exclusive to Israelis that connects Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, slicing through and effectively dividing Palestinian towns. While there, he says \u201cthey started striking.\u201d The interrogator, referring to the distinct license plate colors \u2014 yellow or white \u2014 that denote Israeli and Palestinian identity, asks if they saw \u201ccars for the Arabs and cars for the Jews.\u201d Mohammed acknowledges he did.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the interrogator presses further, Mohammed says he and his friends began to throw rocks at \u201cany\u201d cars as \u201chorseplay.\u201d When asked why, he says: \u201cWe just did it. We wanted to try.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if your parents were driving by? They\u2019d throw it at them?\u201d the interrogator continues to press. Mohammed says yes and that they were not able to see who was driving the cars.<\/p>\n At one point, Mohammed admits to blindly throwing a rock toward the road \u201cfrom far away,\u201d but says that the stone didn\u2019t hit anyone or anything. \u201cIt just landed on the street.\u201d The interrogator exclaims, \u201cBut you threw one!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean I threw a rock; wherever it would land, it would land,\u201d Mohammed responds.\u00a0<\/p>\n The video ends with the interrogator questioning where Mohammed was that morning\u00a0\u2014 \u201casleep\u201d \u2014 and where he was on that Friday \u2013 \u201cat work.\u201d<\/p>\n DCIP\u2019s Cleland criticized the forceful nature of the interrogation and lack of due process rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMohammed Ibrahim was subjected to a very coercive interrogation,\u201d she said, adding that the practice is common in cases of detained children, \u201cand all interrogations are designated to extract a confession.\u201d<\/p>\n The short video does not corroborate Mohammed\u2019s claim in his testimony that an interrogator ordered soldiers to beat him if he didn\u2019t comply.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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