Nasri Hamaeyl, interpreter

Last Wednesday [28 January 2009], around 10:30 A.M., I was standing with some people next to the mosque in the village. A relative of mine, Subhi Hamaeyl, came and told me that he had heard from electric-company workers who had passed through the village that soldiers were mountain were holding Sharif Abu Haya, an elderly man from our village, on Dhaher Jubara Mountain.

I went there with three other men. We got there in a few minutes. Lots of people from the village were there. They had all come to help him. On the mountain, about 200 meters from us, we saw about twelve or fourteen soldiers. Haj Sharif was lying on the ground, but it was hard to see him because the soldiers were standing around him. I went up to them and asked, in English, to speak with the officer in charge so he would tell me why they were holding the elderly man. They replied, in Hebrew, which I understand slightly, “No problem, get out of here. We’ll let him go in five minutes.” I couldn’t see the soldiers’ faces because they were painted black.

Two paramedics joined me. We watched from a distance. One of the soldiers was sitting. It appeared to us that he was sitting on the Haj’s legs. We walk away from then, toward the road. We waited half an hour, but he wasn’t released. Somebody brought the Haj’s identity card from his house. I took the card and went over to the soldiers. I stopped about fifty meters from them and lifted up the card. I told them, in English, that it was his ID card. I wanted them to see his age on the card, and make them realize that he couldn’t take what they were doing to him. One of the soldiers told me go away: “Get out of here, we don’t want [the card]. Get out of here.” I remained where I was.

The paramedics came over and stood next to me, along with a Pal-Media camera crew. In the meantime, I called the Palestinian coordination and liaison office [DCL]. At 11:45, two army jeeps pulled up and four soldiers got out. I think they were from the Israeli DCL. They walked past the people from the village. Among them was an officer who was light-skinned and thirty years old or so. I tried to talk with him, but he motioned with his hand for me to wait. He and the other three soldiers went over to the group of soldiers who were holding Haj Sharif. The officer removed the blindfold from Haj’s face and sat him up. He spoke to him and to the soldiers. After a few minutes, he told them, apparently, to let him go and started to walk away. When he went by us, I asked to speak with him, and he agreed. I told him that the man the soldiers were holding was seventy years old, a shepherd who hadn’t harmed anybody. I asked him why the soldiers acted as they did. He replied, in English: “No problem. They didn’t beat him and he’s all right.” I said that was not true, that I saw a soldier sitting on him. The officer shook his head as if he didn’t care, and walked off.

Afterwards, two soldiers helped the Haj walk. They walked slowly. The paramedics didn’t wait but went over to them, put the man on a stretcher and carried him away. There were marks of a beating on him and he looked as if he was about to faint. They took him to the hospital, and everybody went home. The soldiers walked westward, to Route 60. The relatives collected the flock of sheep and took it home.

Nasri Ahmad Hassan Hamaeyl, 54, married with six children, is a interpreter and a resident of Khirbet Abu Falah in Ramallah District. His testimony was given to Iyad Hadad at the witness’s house on 3 February 2009.