AL-KHALIL/HEBRON: “They only wanted to punish me”

Facebook
Twitter
Email
WhatsApp
Print

CPTnet
27 June 2018
AL-KHALIL/HEBRON: 
They only wanted to punish me 

“At 2 a.m. in the morning on Friday, June 23, I woke up with someone knocking on my house door and I knew what was coming. When I opened the door about twenty-five soldiers entered my house. They didn’t even let me change and immediately ordered me to wake everyone in my house. My son was sleeping in the living room; my other children were in their rooms. I had to wake them all. They put us all together in the living room and kept our cellphones and cameras.

“During the hour they were there, with the excuse of searching for guns, the soldiers raided my house. They threw all of our clothes on the floor and knocked things over to intimidate and humiliate us. They were not searching for anything; they only wanted to punish me.

“My son was handcuffed and blindfolded and they took him. When I asked, ‘why are you taking my kid? ‘They just said, ‘you will find out soon.’

“A few hours later they said that if I wanted to have my son back I would have to pay 1000 shekels. I do not have that money. My two sons are getting married soon; I have a lot of debt. I had to borrow money to be able to release my son. This is the seventeenth time he is arrested and he is only 16-years-old. The first time he was arrested he was only 8-years-old.

“My son said that in the ten hours that he was with the soldiers, they put him in a car and drove him up and down. He was blindfolded the entire time.”

…………………………………………………………………………………

Aref Jaber has always faced threats.  As an active member of Human Rights Defenders, he films and denounces abuses that Israeli occupation forces commit in Palestinian territories. Since 2 June when he witnessed and filmed the Israeli military shoot and kill Palestinian road worker Rami Sabarneh, these threats have become increasingly deadly.  He was arrested, severely beaten and had his house raided several times afterwards. When the soldiers were in his house they told him they would put a bullet in his head.

Still, Jaber refused to follow the instructions of the Israeli intelligence service to testify that the murdered man was drunk driving.

Read More Stories

An aerial view of Oak Flat lands, red stones and mountains under a blue sky with a layer of white clouds

Kill the sacred or stop the mine

At Oak Flat, the capitalist powers of destruction seem to want to play God – but how does one destroy all that sustains life in favour of scars of death?

A compilation of the logos of the undersigned organizations

Sekiz Yıllık Şiddet, Ayrımcılık, Tecrit ve Dışlanma

Mart 2016’da AB-Türkiye Mutabakaı’nın yayınlandığında, devletlerin mültecilerin haklarını koruma konusundaki uluslararası yükümlülüklerini tamamen göz ardı etmesi nedeniyle insan hakları grupları tarafından şiddetle kınanmıştı

A compilation of the logos of the undersigned organizations

Eight years of Violence, Discrimination, Segregation, and Exclusion 

On the eighth anniversary of the EU-Turkey Statement, we denounce Turkey and EU states’ consistent failure to uphold their international obligations with regard to migrants and refugees, and strengthen our joint commitment to challenge all official and unofficial policies that lead to the discrimination, segregation, and ultimately exclusion of migrants.

Skip to content