Israeli troopers arrested Mohammed Ibrahim in February for allegedly throwing stones within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution. An Israeli navy courtroom is weighing the destiny of the Florida teenager.
Muna Ibrahim
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Muna Ibrahim
AL-MAZRAA A-SHARQIYA, Israeli-occupied West Financial institution — Final February, Mohammed Ibrahim — then 15 — was awoken and pulled from his mattress by Israeli troopers, who stated he’d been noticed throwing stones within the occupied West Financial institution.
He is Palestinian-American, and his household splits their time between the Tampa space and a sprawling stone home surrounded by olive timber on this West Financial institution village.
“Around 3:30 in the morning, they blindfolded him, handcuffed him — they just took him,” his mom, Muna Ibrahim, 46, recollects. “Since that day I didn’t see my son. I didn’t hear his voice.”
Mohammed, a U.S. citizen, has been in Israeli jail since then, with out household visits or telephone calls. In March, he turned 16 behind bars, and faces as much as 20 years in jail if convicted.
He is one in all greater than 9,000 Palestinians, together with a whole bunch of kids, detained within the West Financial institution for the reason that Hamas-led assaults of Oct. 7, 2023, and the Gaza conflict that adopted, in accordance with official Palestinian figures.
On Sunday, the Florida teen has a listening to in an Israeli navy courtroom. It is his tenth courtroom appointment, in accordance with his father, Zaher Ibrahim, who plans to attend. All the earlier hearings have adjourned with no plea cut price or trial date.
“Their hearings here are not like America. You wait 9 hours, 8 hours, 7 hours — there’s no time when his court starts,” the daddy, 50, says. “You walk in and they just say, ‘Court delayed until next month.’ That’s how it’s been for 9 months almost.”
Israel has allowed U.S. Embassy officers to go to Mohammed in jail. Zaher Ibrahim says these officers, in addition to freed prisoners, informed him his son is affected by scabies — a rash attributable to a pores and skin parasite — that started on one foot and has unfold throughout his physique, and that he is misplaced almost a 3rd of his physique weight.
Members of the U.S. Congress say he may have “signs of torture.”
Why stone-throwing carries an extended jail sentence underneath Israeli navy regulation
Reasonably than the common Israeli penal code, Mohammed’s case falls underneath particular West Financial institution safety provisions imposed after the Hamas-led assaults of Oct. 7, 2023. These provisions classify stone-throwing as a critical offense. It was widespread in two Palestinian intifadas. Altogether greater than 1,000 Israelis have been killed in these uprisings, together with many occasions that variety of Palestinians.
Courtroom paperwork reviewed by NPR present Mohammed is charged with two counts of stone-throwing. The regulation says it is a prison offense to “throw an object, including a stone, or act in concert to do so.” Three different Palestinian youths have been arrested on the identical day as Mohammed, in reference to the identical alleged incident.
The regulation says if the goal of stone-throwing is an individual or property, the penalty is 10 years in jail. For a transferring car, it is 20 years. The latter is what Mohammed is charged with.
Below interrogation, Mohammed admitted to throwing a stone close to a highway, however says he did not hit something, and did not attempt to. That is in accordance with courtroom paperwork and a video of the interrogation, which a lawyer shared together with his father.
In an announcement to NPR, the Israeli navy refused to touch upon the specifics of Mohammed’s case, however stated navy juvenile courts within the West Financial institution are stored secret to “protect the privacy of minors.”
One of many rationales for such lengthy jail sentences is to incentivize plea bargains, and the overwhelming majority of minors charged in such circumstances by no means serve 20 years, says Lea Tsemel, a famend Israeli lawyer who has represented a whole bunch of Palestinians charged in Israeli courts.
Tsemel isn’t representing Mohammed. However she says the Kafkaesque expertise his father describes in navy courts, and the accounts of illness and malnutrition conveyed by U.S. consular officers, are typical in such circumstances.
“Even a boy — even a younger boy than this one — is considered a security prisoner [under special West Bank security provisions], and will be limited and denied of any right, including food, including family visits,” Tsemel says. “Hardly they can see a lawyer here and there.”
The Ibrahim household has been in a position to rent a lawyer for Mohammed, however jail visits are rare, his father says.
The Israeli navy disputes that. “Defendants are represented by a lawyer of their choice, and all evidence is made available to the defense. The military courts strictly uphold due process and the rights of the defendants throughout the proceedings,” it stated in an announcement to NPR.
What the U.S. authorities is doing
Final month, 27 members of Congress signed a letter to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s from Florida, just like the Ibrahim household. The lawmakers known as on the U.S. authorities to interact with Israel to safe Mohammed’s “swift release,” citing his “alarming weight loss, deteriorating health, and signs of torture.”
On one in all Rubio’s latest journeys to Israel, he appointed a U.S. diplomat to liaise with the Ibrahim household, and Zaher Ibrahim says he is been in contact usually with that particular person.
“They had a couple sit-downs with the Israeli government. They said the meeting was very positive, but there’s been no follow-up after that,” Zaher Ibrahim says.
The U.S. State Division tells NPR it is “tracking Mr. Ibrahim’s case closely and working with the government of Israel.” Huckabee and embassy employees are “deeply involved,” it stated in an e mail.
Every time Mohammed will get out, his household has somber information to ship
Zaher Ibrahim says he hopes his son will likely be launched at Sunday’s listening to, or be capable to enter a plea cut price, or no less than get a trial date.
His spouse Muna has positioned a field of candies on Mohammed’s mattress, the place he hasn’t slept in almost 9 months — as a welcome residence present.
“May no mother go through what I went through,” she says. “We expected he’ll come out within one week, because he’s a U.S. citizen, and we just keep waiting.”
And he or she’s scuffling with how you can inform him about what’s occurred, whereas he is been in jail: In July, Mohammed’s 20-year-old cousin, Sayfollah Musallet, a fellow U.S. citizen, was killed within the West Financial institution. He was overwhelmed to loss of life by Israeli settlers. The 2 boys have been shut, Muna Ibrahim says.
Musallet was the fifth American killed within the West Financial institution since Oct. 7, 2023. No trial has been set in his homicide case, both.
NPR producer Nuha Musleh contributed to this story from the West Financial institution. NPR producers Itay Stern and Alon Avital contributed from Tel Aviv.
