

They pissed on him and he got eight months.



Humiliation is a subjective matter, depending on people’s personal symbols. For me, for example, what feels most humiliating is not the fact that they urinated on him, but that they stripped him naked. At first Mohammad’s father was ashamed to tell about the pissing. To even say these words out loud. I think that for him, that was the most humiliating thing they did to his son, more than all the other things.

What kind of person, I wonder, takes a 13-year old boy no matter why, and tortures him like this. And then I answer myself, almost any Israeli. Any soldier in the army when it comes to Palestinians. Any person, in fact, if only the local codes designate that it’s permissible.



The day I first saw him was one of those Mondays at the ‘Ofer’ military court, in hall number 2. That’s where the children are tried. 20, 22, 23 children a day. Children and youths arrive in groups of two, three, sometimes four, wearing brown prisoners’ garb, their feet chained, one hand shackled to the next boy’s hand.

I noticed him in particular because he had soft, round curls, and because he looked very young, and because he wept. Not that others don’t weep from time to time, of the younger ones, I mean. But at least as far as I’ve seen, not weeping openly like this, without attempting to hold back the tears or hide them.



The military court is about prolonging custody, most of the time. This is the system, even when it comes to children. Regardless of what the detainee is accused of, or what kind of evidence has brought to his arrest. In this sense, be the role of the military court as it may, it certainly has nothing to do with seeking the truth and respective punishment. Not when children are picked up in their homes in the dark of night, usually as a result of someone else having incriminated them, someone who often is but a child, like them. Usually for throwing stones, or hurling improvised Molotov cocktails. And for this they are arrested, without an option of release with bail, until the end of the proceedings. For months. At least for three. Eventually they are found guilty, nearly always. Although usually incrimination is the extent of the evidence.



And after all, even if it can rightly be said that throwing a stone at the occupier is a crime, and even if it right to say that a child stone-thrower is as culpable as an adult, and even if a stone is equal to the bullet of a gun – even a stone that has not hurt anyone, still under these circumstances there is no way to know what really happened. And this is no failure of the system or a mistake, but the pursuit of the truth is by no means the point. Because the court is an arm of the Occupation, and their purposes identical: oppression, harassment and domination. Nothing else.



At any rate, on that day as on many others, again and again blocs of children entered, shackled to one another, most of them smiling broadly in spite of it all. Because these ridiculous prolongations of arrest (meant especially to let the Occupation forces have more time to crush and squeeze these children and recruit more collaborators) are the only time when these youngsters can see their families. So here comes little Mohammad Mukheir, not smiling to his parents, not waving, and for some reason our hearts just stopped and were rent at first sight. This was before we had learned what this child had gone through. Just this look of his, so soft and scared, his curls so childish, his large eyes overflowing, already singed the soul. And the usual things took place. The warden unshackled him and he sat down. There were a few boys and children before him, a bit older, and everyone’s session was delayed for a another period of time. But in this time at least, they chatted with their families as long as the soldiers and wardens let them, everyone except Mohammad. Who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and trembling with cold, and didn’t speak, just wept. And his mother could not stop weeping either. And this was unusual since mostly the mothers cry afterwards. After their sons are taken away. And the father, withholding hysteria, kept fingering an imagined phone number on his hand, and murmuring to the boy to commit the number to memory, trying to make sure the boy remembers the number. But the boy’s lips were frozen. Only his tears kept falling. And then it was his turn, and the translator told him to get up and he did. And his name was read. And then he was told to sit and he sat down. His eyes were unfocused, and he looked younger than his 13 years of age. Within a few moments the woman-judge said that the court will be session again in two weeks’ time and the warden ordered the boy to stand up. And he stood up. His gaze clutching his parents’, and theirs his. And the warden shackled him and signaled him to start moving. And his face, wet with all those tears, was pale with terror.



The boy was standing close to the exit, the warden beside him, hurrying him on, his last gaze at his parents, dwelling on them, and the mother clutched her hands, and the father, in some final determination, murmured to him: get a haircut. Get a haircut, he repeated his gestures and the lips mouthing the words, and signaled with his hand at his own hair, and then at the little one’s curls. As if he would leave a better, a more respectable impression if he got a haircut, he thought – apparently. While we thought that he was not right. That it was better for the child to remain exactly as he was. Unruly and childish. For his curls are evidence that need not be blurred, of the real world to which he belongs. His young age. And his deep, inherent right that shouts out of their softness. And then the judge suddenly said: Why is he not dressed? The words were sent into the air, their outlines disintegrating as they became transparent, and the warden continued to lead him on, and he disappeared, and she said no more. And the stunned parents stood up. And hung their heads. And left, bent over, and we hurried after them.

We, with our inherent privileges, still roaming the corridors of this place, as long as we’re still allowed to do so.



“He lied to his mother” said Tareq, Mohammad’s father. “He said ‘I am in the village’, and he was with the kids, and I don’t know what exactly happened, people said they saw him in the soldiers’ jeep, and that they beat him up… I knew where he was. There’s an army base next to the Beit Horon settlement. It’s at the entrance to Lower Beit Ur, between Upper and Lower Beit Ur. So I went there straight away. And I asked about him. I wanted to tell them, he’s a kid. If he threw stones I’ll jail him at home. I wanted to see what happened to him. And the soldier told me he wasn’t there. That I should try at ‘Ofer’. He said it just like that. I knew he was there. I told them I know he’s there. They said, ‘you have five minutes to leave, or the soldier will shoot you’. It’s that soldier on the tower. The lookout. With his gun pointed at me. So I left.”

“We didn’t know what they did to him there. We knew nothing. Only later we knew.”



“We looked for him for a whole week, until we found out where he was”, the father continued. “Everywhere we were told he was not there. Now I know that after three days in the base he was taken to ‘Ofer’. And was there for a month. And after a month they put him in ‘Rimonim’. That’s a jail for children and women. And this whole month we couldn’t speak to him. Until he had his first court session. And only in court did we see him. He didn’t talk, he only cried. I don’t know what they said there, they set another court date, maybe for two weeks later. I don’t remember exactly. Then we got a telephone call from somewhere in Ramallah. Human rights people. For minors. I was told ‘your son’s condition is not good. He’s got stuff on his feet. He was hurt. On his fingers. With cigarettes. With guns. And me and his mother were crying for a whole week. And not eating.”



“Look it up on the internet, what happened to him”, he added. His lips were pursed as he spoke. Perhaps he had a hard time telling it all outright. And we really looked and found what had been publicized: