Testimonies

Jadallah a-Rajabi , laborer,

We live on the fourth floor of a building that belongs to our family.

Last Monday [12 January], I woke up around 2:30 A.M. to the sound of banging on the front gate. I quickly got up. I looked out the kitchen window, from which you can see my brother Sami's apartment. Sami has been detained in Israel for about three years. His wife and children live on the ground floor of the building. I heard his son, Firas, who is twenty-one, ask, from inside the house, who was there. “Police!” somebody replied. Firas said he'd come right away to open the door, and that there was no need to bang so hard. The man who was standing outside said he would break the door. I rushed downstairs.

When I got there, the door was broken. At the entrance to Sami's house were five policemen. They were wearing black masks and Border Police uniforms. I asked them what they wanted. One of them said, “What do you want?” I told him it was my brother's house, that he wasn't at home, and that I wanted to know why they had come. One of them shouted at me in Arabic, “Get out of here and go home!” I refused to go and asked again why they had come. One of them came over to me and asked, “Who are you?” I repeated that I was the owner's brother.

He sprayed yellow gas in my face and grabbed me by my pajama collar. The policemen dragged me a few meters and threw me to the ground. They beat me with the butts of their rifles for a few minutes. One of them sprayed more gas in my face. Then they cuffed my hands behind my back with metal handcuffs. They dragged me a few more meters and stopped in front of the mosque that is next to our house. One of them said, in Arabic, “You're criminals.” “We're not criminals,” I said, “you're being violent with us.” He sprayed me in the face with gas, aiming at my eyes and mouth. I had trouble breathing, and my throat burned. I almost choked. My eyes hurt and I couldn't see.

After that, I saw my brother Zuheir standing next to me. I asked him to bring me water. He brought me a bottle of water and one of the policemen asked him, “What are you doing?” He answered, “I brought him water.” The policeman took the bottle and threw it aside. Two policemen standing next to me aimed their rifles at me. A few minutes after that, policemen brought my brother Suhaib, who is sixteen. His hands were cuffed. A policeman pushed him against the wall and then to the floor, next to me.

Then they brought my brother Lu'ai, who is thirteen. He was crying and calling out my name. A policeman slapped him hard a few times and told him to shut up. Then all the policemen gathered together. There were more than twenty-five of them. One of them removed my handcuffs, and then they left.

I still had trouble breathing. My brothers Hazem, Zuheir, and Munther put me into a car to take me to the hospital. We drove to the end of the street, where we saw the policemen. One of them came over to the car and aimed his rifle at us. He told us we couldn't continue on our way. Zuheir told him they wanted to take me to the hospital, but the policeman wouldn't let us. We had to go back home.

A relative, Kayed a-Rag'abi and two neighbors, Taha Shhadeh and Salem Gheith, helped me walk to the main road of Silwan, where I was taken in the car of another relative, Jaber a-Rag'abi, to al-Moqassed Hospital. The physicians examined and treated me. Later, I learned that three of my nephews - Suhaib, Lu'ai, and another nephew - had been detained. The other nephew was released the same day, Lu'ai was detained for three days, and Suhaib for five days. They questioned them about throwing stones.

Jadallah Khader ‘Abd al-Fatah a-Rajabi , married with two children, is a laborer, and a resident of Silwan in East Jerusalem. His testimony was given to Kareem Jubran at the witness's house on 20 January 2009.