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Hebron beatings abuse { January 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/international/middleeast/02MIDE.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/international/middleeast/02MIDE.html
January 2, 2003
Hebron Residents Describe an Israeli Reign of Beatings
By DEXTER FILKINS
HEBRON, West Bank, Jan. 1 — Almost any young man walking the streets of this gritty Palestinian neighborhood on the eastern rim of the city can tell you the same thing: when the Israeli border police want to give someone a beating, they take him to the city's deserted industrial area after dark.
Imran Abu Hamdiya, a 17-year-old high school senior, was taken away by four police officers Monday night, residents here said in interviews, and he never came back. Mr. Hamdiya's friends, assuming he might need a hand after receiving blows from a nightstick, went to the city's industrial zone to look for him.
They found his body there, splayed in a pool of blood. When they carried their friend to a local hospital, a doctor delivered his appraisal.
"He died from injuries caused by beating the head and face," said Dr. Mazen Jabari, of Mohtaseb Hospital.
The important mysteries surrounding Mr. Hamdiya's death — who killed him and why — may, like so many encounters in the West Bank and Gaza, go forever unanswered. Israeli officials say they have begun an investigation.
But Israeli human rights groups say the government's record in disciplining their own for such abuses is not encouraging, and there is little evidence. Mr. Hamdiya was buried soon after he died, following Muslim custom, and the police say they did not have a chance to examine his body. His family members, who say they do not trust the Israelis, are reluctant to talk to the police or allow them to exhume the body.
"If the complaint is right, then people will get punished," said Pearl Liat, a spokeswoman for the Israeli border police. "But maybe it is not them. Maybe it is not the border police at all. Maybe it is soldiers, maybe it is no one."
For the people of the Jabal Johar neighborhood on the east side of Hebron, Mr. Hamdiya's death seemed a natural end of an Israeli strategy of applying pressure to quell resistance in one of the West Bank's most restive areas. Since November, when 12 Israeli soldiers were killed near here, the campaign has been particularly fierce, locals say. Curfews, interrogations and beatings have become as commonplace as shopping and going to school, they say.
"Some people make trouble, so they punish everybody," said Hafez Alu Snaineh, a gas station attendant in the neighborhood. "They break bones. They give bruises. With Imran, they probably didn't mean to kill him, but they did."
Since the Palestinian uprising began 27 months ago, the area around Hebron has been one of its recurrent flash points. The source of much of the turmoil is a small Israeli settlement in the heart of what is otherwise a Palestinian city of 120,000 people. The area around the settlement has been the scene of periodic violence and, as a result, it has drawn a large contingent of Israeli troops and police officers.
In November and December, two Palestinian-led attacks, which killed 14 Israeli soldiers, the police and security guards, prompted a renewed crackdown by Israeli troops and the police. Since then, the locals say, Hebron has been under nearly constant curfews, searches and beatings to root out enemy fighters.
As described by local Palestinians, the Israeli strategy here seems reminiscent of the one in the first intifada in the late 1980's, when the Israeli leader, Yitzhak Rabin, told his troops to break Palestinian bones.
Consider the gathering at Yasser pharmacy on Tariq Benziyad Street. It was a group of a dozen friends who had come to chat on one of the few days when a curfew did not require them to be indoors.
There was Hasan Ajlouni, who said he was driving his car during the curfew recently when Israeli soldiers fired on him. He lost control and drove into a light post, killing his 7-year-old son, Fadi.
Then there was Rajeh Daoud, a pharmacist, who said he was beaten by the Israeli police when he kept his shop open in defiance of the curfew and slipped medicine to customers through a side door. "People need medicine," Mr. Daoud said. "I was trying to serve the community."
Ms. Liat, the border police spokesman, said the Israeli police did not engage in systemic brutality. Often, she said, the claims made by Palestinians fell apart once they were scrutinized. "We take them very seriously, every complaint," she said.
Staff workers at Btselem, an Israeli human rights organization, said the police and soldiers were rarely disciplined for brutality. Of 49 cases reported to Btselem since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, one has resulted in convictions.
"There is no deterrent, because they rarely make cases against the officers," said Maya Johnston, a data coordinator at the organization.
Dr. Jabari, of Mohtaseb Hospital, said four or five young Palestinian men were brought to the hospital every night, claiming to have been beaten by the Israeli police.
It is impossible to tell how many of the stories heard on the streets of Hebron are true. Hamzeh Rajabi, for instance, said he was picked up by Israeli border police and beaten Monday night, about an hour before Mr. Hamdiya was. His rolled-up sleeve revealed a swollen and darkened left arm. "They said I was a collaborator," Mr. Rajabi said.
In the case of Mr. Hamdiya, two men who say they were with him on Monday night said the police approached them just after evening prayers. The police checked their identification cards and told three of the men to go. Then, the men said, they asked Mr. Hamdiya to stay.
Minutes later, said Raed Rajabi, one of the two men, they saw the officers put Mr. Hamdiya in the back seat of their jeep and drive away.
"When we saw the direction of the jeep, we knew where they were going," Mr. Rajabi said.
Outside the same mosque where Mr. Hamdiya prayed for the last time, a crowd of mourners gathered. Among them was Aleh Omar Abu Turky, whose twin sons attended class with him.
"Imran was honest and beautiful, all the best things," she said. "He didn't throw stones, nothing like that. He was a gentle boy."
Ms. Turky began to walk away, then she paused and turned.
"There was no reason for this," she said, her eyes welling. "Everyday they take men. They hit them and they break their bones. What kind of life is this?"
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