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One of the soldiers motioned to me to stop, and I stopped. He told me, in Arabic, to give him my identity card, and I gave it to him. He said something in Hebrew, and I understood that he wanted me to join the other person who had been detained. I went over to him. He seemed frightened and terrified. "What happened?" I asked him. He replied that the soldiers had beaten him. I saw one of the soldiers come toward us, and we stopped talking. The soldier gave the fellow's identity card back to him and held a video tape in his hand. The tape had a picture of Hassan Nasrallah on it, and on it was written [in Arabic], "the dissipating illusion and the just promise."
The soldier asked, in Arabic, "What does this say?" The fellow said that he didn't know. The soldier said to me, "What does this say?" I said that I didn't know. The soldiers said, "OK, you [in the plural] don't know." He turned around to the other soldiers and one of them threw a wooden stick to him. As he did that, the fellow next to me got up and ran to the dirt road leading to Deir Sharf. The soldier who threw the stick and the soldier who asked us what was written on the tape chased after him. They disappeared for a few minutes and returned alone.
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The soldier who beat me grabbed my neck and squeezed. I started to choke and had trouble breathing. The other soldier moved him away and I saw him motion to the soldier to beat me on the head, and he hit me on the head a couple of times with the stick. That hurt a lot, and I couldn't withstand the suffering any more. I tried to escape and managed to run about fifty meters. The two soldiers chased me. The soldier with the stick hit me a couple of times on the head, until I fell and lost consciousness. I don't know how long I remained unconscious.
When I woke up, the two soldiers kicked me and beat me all over my body. I saw an army Hummer jeep arrive from the direction of the Shevi Shomron settlement. The driver got out and spoke with the two soldiers in Hebrew. I don't know what he said. I only understand a few words in Hebrew. The two soldiers moved away from me. When the jeep left, the soldier who beat me shouted at me to stand up. I wasn't able to get on my feet, the pain was so great. I don't know what happened to my legs.
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After that, the soldier who was sitting all the time inside the jeep took a long red and white iron rod, which soldiers usually put on the road to stop cars in front of a checkpoint. He gave it to one of the soldiers, and he hit me in the head with it. I cried out in pain and asked him, "Why are you doing this to me? If you want to shoot me, then shoot me." He replied: "I want to torture you." Then he asked me if I wanted water, and I said that I did. He brought a bottle of water from the vehicle and stood facing me laughing. He threw the bottle into the vehicle and hit me in the head again, with the same iron rod. I wanted to escape but couldn't move. I couldn't stand it any more. I did not know what they were doing to me. One of the soldiers covered my mouth with a piece of cloth that he took from the vehicle and, together with the other soldier, threw me into the vehicle like a sack of trash and closed the door,
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Photo of two of the soldiers suspected of the abuse, taken by a third soldier, using Tha'ir Muhsen's cell phone camera.He said I was lying, and I explained that I bought it second-hand and it came with the picture. He asked me where I bought it. I told him that I bought it at a shop in Nablus . He asked which one, and I told him I forgot. While this was going on, the other soldier was hitting me in the back with the stick and asking me the same questions. Each time that I said I didn't know, the soldier hit me on the head or back. The first soldier asked me, "How much did you pay for it?" "Five hundred shekels," I told him. He said that he paid 4,000 shekels for his cell phone, and asked me, "Where are the receipts for the cell phone?" I told him I didn't have them.
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rifle at me. Afterwards, the officer gave the rifle to the soldier who translated, moved back a few meters, ran toward me and kicked me in the head. He did this a few times, as if my head were a ball in a game.
Then the officer grabbed my head and slammed it into the armored vehicle and went away. After a few minutes passed, he came and gave me back my identity card and told me to go. I told him that I needed my cell phone, and he said, "What do you say that I give you my cell phone and I take yours?" I said, "No. I want mine." He gave me the cell phone and made a dismissive motion with his head. "Go," he said, "and I don't want to see you here again." I barely managed to get up. I had trouble walking and moved slowly.
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I started walking. After I went about fifteen meters, I opened my wallet. I saw that I was missing one thousand shekels that my father had given me to register at the university. I had four 200-shekel notes and two 100-shekel notes. I did not pay for registration because I got to the university too late and the registration office was closed. I said to the soldiers, "Where is my money?" The officer replied, "Your money " and took the notes out of his pants' pocket. He said, "This is my money. Get out of here and if you tell anybody about the money, I'll shoot you." He picked up a stone and hit me with it. I began to go. For the first thirty meters, they threw stones at me. I called my father because I had trouble walking. He came quickly and took me home. I got home about 7:30PM. The soldiers had held me for about two hours.
My father summoned a doctor from the village to come to our home. He cleaned and stitched my wounds. That evening, my friends came to visit me. One of them looked at the photos in the cell phone and suddenly saw a picture of soldiers. He asked me, "What is this picture?" When I looked, I realized that the first soldier apparently mistakenly took a picture of the soldiers when he was playing with my camera [cell phone]. The second soldier the officer appears in the photo. He is holding a wooden stick. The third soldier is sitting next to him. The fourth soldier is partially visible. He was the one who sat most of the time in the armored vehicle and threw the stick to the other soldiers when they needed it. I saw the first soldier, the one who took the picture, a few times last week at the Beit Iba checkpoint. He is average height, about 1.7 meters, has a sparse beard, a light complexion, and speaks Arabic, but not like somebody who really speaks the language.
Because of the pain, I did not sleep at all that night. My head and leg hurt from being hit by the big rock. Whenever I walk, I lose my balance and feel as if I am going to fall. I went to the army liaison office on August 28, 2006 to file a complaint and give them a copy of the picture of the soldiers.