Summary

In the 25 years since Palestinians gained a degree of self-rule over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, their authorities have established machineries of repression to crush dissent, including through the use of torture.

Both the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza have in recent years carried out scores of arbitrary arrests for peaceful criticism of the authorities, particularly on social media, among independent journalists, on university campuses, and at demonstrations. As the Fatah-Hamas feud deepened despite attempts at reconciliation, PA security services have targeted supporters of Hamas and vice versa. Relying primarily on overly broad laws that criminalize activity such as causing “sectarian strife” or insulting “higher authorities,” the PA and Hamas use detention to punish critics and deter them and others from further activism. In detention, security forces routinely taunt, threaten, beat, and force detainees into painful stress positions for hours at a time.

This report is the result of a two-year investigation by Human Rights Watch into patterns of arrest and detention conditions. It draws on 86 cases in the West Bank and Gaza, which show that Palestinian authorities routinely arrest people whose peaceful speech displeases them and torture those in their custody. These findings emerge from interviews with 147 persons, most of them ex-detainees, but also family members, lawyers, NGO representatives, and a doctor; and a review of photographic and video evidence, medical reports, and court documents.

Human Rights Watch also wrote to the main implicated security agencies and government authorities in both the West Bank and Gaza and received substantive responses from each, which are reflected in the report and reprinted in full at the end of this report. They all denied that abuses amount to more than isolated cases that are investigated when brought to the attention of authorities, who hold perpetrators to account. The evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch and presented in this report contradicts these claims.

The arrests for nonviolent speech acts constitute serious violations of international human rights law, in contravention of legal obligations imposed through Palestine’s accession to major international human rights treaties over the last five years. The torture as practiced by both the PA and Hamas may amount to a crime against humanity, given its systematic practice over many years.

Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, talks about what his team’s two years of research has uncovered -- namely, arbitrary arrests and torture. More

The primary security agencies implicated in the abuses documented in this report include Hamas’ Internal Security and the PA’s Preventive Security, Intelligence Services, and Joint Security Committee. PA security forces operate with significant support from the United States and Europe and in coordination with the Israeli army. Hamas receives financial aid from Iran, Qatar, and Turkey.

Both authorities have mechanisms in place to receive complaints from citizens and concerned organizations and investigate potential wrongdoing by security forces, but, according to information provided by the security agencies to Human Rights Watch, these rarely lead to a finding of wrongdoing, much less disciplinary measures or prosecutions for serious abuses.

Arbitrary Arrests

The PA and Hamas have both clamped down on the major outlets for dissent available to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Both authorities categorically deny carrying out arbitrary arrests, insisting they act in accordance with the law. However, Human Rights Watch’s documentation shows that they regularly detain critics without a reasonable basis to suspect they committed a cognizable offense and rely on dubious or broadly worded charges to justify detaining them and to pressure them to stop their activities. While the specifics differ between the West Bank and Gaza, the result in both places is shrinking space for free speech, association, and assembly.

Political Opposition

The Fatah-controlled PA has methodically arrested activists and supporters of Hamas or Hamas-aligned groups solely because of their political affiliation or expression, with Hamas carrying out similar abuses against partisans of Fatah or officials who served in the PA-led government, including in the security services, before the 2007 Hamas takeover.

In the West Bank, for example, PA forces detained 38-year-old Osama al-Nabrisi at least 15 times since he finished serving a 12-year prison sentence in Israel in October 2014, including just two days after his release, apparently because of his involvement with the Hamas political bloc while in Israeli prison. They held him pursuant to orders by local officials under a form of administrative detention increasingly used in recent years and not subject to the legal procedures set out under the Palestinian Criminal Procedures law.

In Gaza, Hamas authorities arrested Abdel Basset Amoom, an ex-PA Preventive Security employee, in January 2017 for his involvement in a protest about electricity cuts. An interrogator told Amoom, “You Fatah members want to make anarchy and chaos, you want to destabilize security,” but provided no specific accusations of unlawful activity beyond demonstrating without a permit.

Social Media

Palestinian authorities have carried out dozens of arrests for critical posts on social media platforms, which Palestinians increasingly rely on to share their views, connect with one another, and organize activities.

In the West Bank, for example, PA security forces dispatched 10 officers to the house of activist Issa Amro in Hebron in September 2017, one hour after he criticized on Facebook the detention of a journalist and called on the PA to respect free expression. They detained Amro for a week, accusing him of wanting to lead a coup, and charging him on the basis of his post with, among other things, creating “sectarian strife,” insulting “higher authorities,” and endangering “the public order of the state.” In May 2016, Hamza Zbeidat, who works for a development NGO, said officers held him for two days and questioned him about a post calling for Palestinians to “struggle against the PA like we struggle against the occupation” and asked why he criticizes the PA and not Hamas.

In Gaza, Hamas police detained a 28-year-old social worker in April 2017, after he posted on Facebook an excerpt from a book by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani. The police interrogated him about what other books he had read, charged him with “offending religious feelings,” among other things, and released him only after he signed a commitment not to “misuse social media.” Officers also held journalist Amer Balousha for fifteen days in July 2017 after a Facebook post that asked, “do your children [referring to Hamas leaders] sleep on the floor like ours do,” calling him a “source of sedition,” and allegedly telling him “it’s forbidden to write against Hamas, we will shoot you,” and charging him with “misuse of technology.”

Journalists

The Fatah-controlled PA and Hamas have also targeted journalists, both those affiliated with the rival camp and unaffiliated ones who produce reports critical of their policies.

In 2017, PA forces arrested one journalist, Jihad Barakat, who snapped photos of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah at an Israeli checkpoint, and a second, Sami As-Sai, who shared a list of Palestinians in Israeli prisons with a Hamas member in Gaza. In Gaza, Hamas police detained in September 2016 one journalist, Muhammad Othman, for publishing a leaked document showing how a former prime minister of the Gaza authority was continuing to make government decisions and charged another, Hajar Harb, in August 2016 with “slander” and “lack of precision” in relation to an investigative piece she wrote alleging corruption in the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

Hamas forces in June 2017 detained Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Fouad Jarada and questioned him about a string of critical news reports and a Facebook post critical of Qatar, then an ally of Hamas. They later arrested his cousin Ashraf at around the same time and held them both for over two months and charged them in military court with “harming revolutionary unity.” Not long afterward, in August 2017, PA forces arrested five journalists in the West Bank considered sympathetic to Hamas. Prosecutors told one of them, Bethlehem-based Mamdouh Hamamra, that his fate was linked to that of Jarada. Hamas released Jarada on August 13, 2017, and the PA released the five journalists the next day.

Demonstrations

Palestinians also have limited freedom to participate in anti-government political demonstrations in both the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank, PA forces arrested dozens of members of the Islamist al-Tahrir Party in relation to peaceful protests the party had organized in February 2017 against the sale of Waqf, or Islamic trust, land in Hebron.

In Gaza, Hamas police detained hundreds of demonstrators who took to the streets in January 2017 to protest the electricity crisis, including Muhammad Lafi, a 25-year-old activist who had also released a music video the day before demonstrations calling for people to rise up. Authorities charged Lafi with “inciting against the government, damaging public property, and calling for riots,” based on his involvement in the demonstrations, releasing him only after he signed a pledge not to “participate in any unauthorized demonstrations.” Hamas police weeks later detained Fatah activist Yaser Weshah for seven days and questioned him about an action he had taken in solidarity with detained electricity protesters in which he held a sign on a major road saying, “No to political arrests. No to gag orders.”

On University Campuses

Palestinian authorities closely monitor criticism of the PA at universities. In January 2017, PA forces detained Fares Jbour, an electrical engineering student in Hebron, and questioned him about his participation in a book drive organized by the Hamas-affiliated Islamic Bloc on campus. Jbour told Human Rights Watch that PA forces had arrested him five previous times over his peaceful activities with the bloc, and said that prosecutors charged him with “weapons possession,” “forming militias,” “heading an armed gang,” and “money laundering,” but released him without referring him to court. In February 2017, Hamas police held Youssef Omar, who teaches history at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, along with four other professors, apparently over their activism with the union of university employees, which opposed Hamas’ attempt to appoint a new university president without consulting the PA.

Opposition Strongholds

Palestinian police have most aggressively policed areas in the West Bank and Gaza seen as hotbeds of political opposition. In the West Bank, the harshest reprisals have targeted the Nablus area, in particular the Balata Refugee Camp, seen as a base of support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Muhammad Dahlan, and the Old City of Nablus, where tensions have flared in recent years between supporters and critics of the PA. In Gaza, the crackdown around the January 2017 electricity protests focused on the refugee camps, particularly al-Bureij and Jabalia, where much of the organizing took place.

Torture and Abuse in Custody

Human Rights Watch’s investigation based on 147 interviews further indicates that the mistreatment and torture of those in Palestinian custody is routine, in particular in Hamas’ Internal Security custody in Gaza and in the PA’s Intelligence, Preventive Security, and Joint Security Committee detention facilities in Jericho. The habitual, deliberate, widely known use of torture, using similar tactics over years with no action taken by senior officials in either authority to stop these abuses, make these practices systematic. They also indicate that torture is governmental policy for both the PA and Hamas.

Positional abuse or shabeh, the most common tactic used by both the PA and Hamas, paralleling years of Israeli practice against Palestinians, can amount to torture when it constitutes deliberate infliction of severe harm. While the PA and Hamas both deny using shabeh, scores of detainees told Human Rights Watch that officers placed them in painful stress positions for many hours at a time, using a mix of techniques that often left little or no trace on the body.

In the West Bank, the Intelligence Services, Preventive Security, and Joint Security Committee often practice shabeh at their detention facilities in Jericho, where they regularly send political detainees. Alaa Zaqeq, detained in April 2017 because of his university activism with the Islamic Bloc, said that Intelligence Services officers forced him to stand for stretches at a time with his legs spread out in a half squat, and later, on his tiptoes with a rope pulling his hands back. He said an interrogator known as the “Juicer” told him he would “leave this place in a wheelchair,” and, “we are going to make you pay the price for the coup in Gaza.” At the same detention center two months prior, journalist Sami As-Sai said officers greeted him by telling him, “We had people who entered here with muscles and left without any.” They tied his hands by rope to the ceiling of an interrogation room and slowly pulled the rope to apply pressure to his arms, which caused him to feel so much pain that he had to ask an officer to pull his pants up after he used the toilet because he could not do it himself.

In Gaza, Internal Security officers often put detainees in a room called the bus, where they force detainees to stand or sit in a small child’s chair for hours or even days, with few breaks. A PA civil servant, arrested after a friend tagged him in a Facebook post calling for protests on the electricity crisis, spent most of his days in the Internal Security’s Gaza City detention center subjected to positional abuse in the bus, causing him to feel “severe pain in my kidneys and spine” and as if his neck would “break” and his “body is tearing up inside.” Journalists Ashraf and Fouad Jarada spent most of their first month in the bus, where security personnel forced them to alternate between standing and the chair.

Palestinian forces in both the West Bank and Gaza regularly use threats of violence, taunts, solitary confinement, and beatings, including lashing and whipping of the feet of detainees, to elicit confessions, punish, and intimidate activists. When al-Tahrir Party member Fawaz al-Herbawi refused to answer questions during an interrogation, an interrogator threatened to break his legs. Officers at the Intelligence Services’ detention facility in Jericho whipped engineering student Jbour’s feet and hit him on his side with a hose, while subjecting him to shabeh, and told him, “If you did not confess in Hebron, you will confess here.” In a subsequent session, as officers alternated between kicking and hitting him with a baton, they told him, “You are affiliated with Hamas … a day will come for you. If you do not talk, you will see something you have never seen before,” and put him in a solitary cell, cut off from other inmates for a week.

In Gaza, an officer chided Weshah, the Fatah activist, for writing about “sensitive issues” like unemployment and medical negligence, telling him, “Next time, I will cause you a permanent disability,” putting him in the bus for three days. Amoom, the Dahlan supporter, said officers whipped his feet and his chest with a cable until he felt he “was losing consciousness.” Officers told Othman, the journalist, that they will “end [his] journalist future” if he “criticize[d] the government or the security apparatus;” they placed him in the bus. Two months after his release, he left Gaza as a result of the harassment and says he does not intend to return.

Authorities also regularly use similar tactics, sometimes with a greater degree of intensity, for those detained on drug or other criminal charges in order to obtain confessions. In the West Bank, a then 17-year-old boy said security forces detained him for a week and repeatedly tortured him in April 2017. Police shackled his hands behind his back and slowly raised them and hit his feet and legs repeatedly with a baton. When he could no longer bear the pain, he confessed to stealing some agricultural equipment. Sarie Samandar, a Christian Jerusalemite detained after a June 2017 street fight, said PA police called him a “Christian pig,” and that, “Daesh (Islamic State or ISIS) needs to come for you,” and repeatedly punched, kicked, and slammed his body against the wall.

In Gaza, Emad al-Shaer, a farmer detained on drug possession charges, said that police attached his hands by cable to the ceiling and feet to the window and left him hanging while repeatedly whipping his feet and body with a cable, telling him, “You will die here if you do not speak.” He confessed. Despite only a day in detention, he spent five days in hospitals drifting into and out of consciousness and receiving treatment for injuries linked to his treatment in custody, including coughing up blood, kidney failure, and blockage of a major blood vessel, according to medical reports and photos reviewed by Human Rights Watch.

In the West Bank, some of the harshest treatment reported by detainees occurs at the Joint Security Committee detention facility in Jericho, where officers subject detainees to regular shabeh and long stints in small solitary cells cut off from others. A young man from Balata said officers subjected him twice to electrical shocks and once tied a cord around his penis and witnessed officers dislocate the shoulder of another detainee when striking him with a chair while his hands were bound behind his back, an account corroborated by the other detainee’s family after a visit with him.

Chilling Effect

Beyond the arrest and torture, authorities use several other tactics to punish and deter activists, including confiscating their electronic devices, leaving investigations open, and coercing detainees to commit not to engage in further dissent. Both the PA and Hamas interrogators frequently pressure detainees into providing access to their cellphones and social media accounts. Governments can use easily accessible technology to copy all details from seized cellphones, including contacts. Nablus-based journalist Tarek Abu Zaid said he gave interrogators his Facebook password in order to stop officers from subjecting him to shabeh and beating him in May 2016, when detained after publishing a report on PA torture. After the Intelligence Services arrested him again in August 2017, they interrogated him about several Facebook posts that they had printed out. In Gaza, 55-year-old United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) math teacher Abdullah Abu Sharekh, detained for criticizing comments made by a Hamas leader to the effect that Gaza is steadfast and prosperous, provided his Facebook password after authorities threatened to imprison him for six months if he refused. After four arrests between January 2017 and January 2018 and long stretches in the bus, he said, “I decided to leave them alone, so they can leave me alone.”

In the West Bank, the PA often releases detainees without dropping the charges against them, so that charges hang over the former detainees as a potential pretext for future summons or arrests. The vague language in sections of the Penal Code and the Electronic Crimes Law, issued in 2017 and amended in 2018, granting authorities vast authority to monitor and restrict online activity, make it hard for people to know what type of expression constitutes a crime.[4] They also often repeatedly arrest or summon dissidents for interrogations as a punitive measure or to harass them into silence.

In Gaza, authorities regularly condition release on signing a commitment not to engage in the type of peaceful expression that led to their arrest.

Lack of Accountability

In both Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian authorities have routinely failed to hold accountable security forces for carrying out arbitrary arrests or using excessive force, ill-treatment, or torture against detainees. External oversight has not stopped routine abuse, even though that oversight should have become more robust after Palestine acceded in December 2017 to the Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and authorities began deliberations on how to establish an oversight regime that includes surprise visits, as required under the protocol. Citizens and human rights groups have filed hundreds of complaints through internal complaint mechanisms within each agency. However, authorities took no disciplinary action in the vast majority of cases, with only a small number resulting in administrative sanction or referral for criminal prosecution. While military prosecutors have the power to independently prosecute wrongdoing by members of the security force regardless of their rank, Human Rights Watch is not aware of a single case in which a member of a security force was convicted of arbitrarily arresting or mistreating detainees.

Widespread arbitrary arrests and torture put Palestinian authorities in violation of a range of human rights treaties they acceded to over the last five years. Hamas authorities in a letter to Human Rights Watch said it had committed itself to upholding all international treaties ratified by the PA. International legal standards set out a robust right to free expression; they categorically prohibit torture, as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The Palestinian Basic Law reflects these obligations, safeguarding the “right [of a person] to publish his opinion orally, in writing, or in any form of art, or through any other form of expression” and restricting authorities from arbitrarily arresting and torturing detainees.

The UN Committee Against Torture has said that “torture is practiced systematically when it is apparent that the torture cases reported have not occurred fortuitously in a particular place or at a particular time, but are seen to be habitual, widespread and deliberate in at least a considerable part of the territory of the country in question.” As a crime of universal jurisdiction, states are required to arrest and investigate anyone on their territory credibly suspected of involvement in torture anywhere and to prosecute them or extradite them to face justice. The Convention against Torture makes clear that “those exercising superior authority - including public officials - cannot avoid accountability or escape criminal responsibility for torture or ill-treatment committed by subordinates where they knew or should have known that such impermissible conduct was occurring, or was likely to occur, and they failed to take reasonable and necessary preventive measures."[6] When part of a widespread or systematic “attack on a civilian population,” which means it is part of a state or organizational planning or policy to commit the crime, torture constitutes a crime against humanity prosecutable at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Human Rights Watch calls on President Abbas to publicly pledge to end arbitrary arrests, torture, and impunity for security forces and empower a credible, independent governmental body to inspect places of detention and investigate and prosecute allegations of wrongdoing. Prosecutors should refrain from charging defendants under vaguely worded penal code sections used to carry out arrests based on peaceful criticism of authorities, and security forces should stop arresting, detaining, and charging persons for nonviolent dissent.

Hamas authorities should similarly pledge to end arbitrary arrest and torture and establish a mechanism of oversight over its detention practices. Prosecutors should refrain from filing charges such as “harming revolutionary unity” or “misuse of technology,” to prosecute persons for nonviolent critical speech. They should investigate in a thorough, impartial, and timely manner all allegations of abuse, and prosecute members of security forces against whom there is evidence of criminal responsibility.

Palestinian authorities should implement the treaties Palestine has ratified, especially the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol, and establish a national body to oversee places of detention.

The PA and Hamas rely heavily on external support. The US allocated US$35 million in International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) nonlethal assistance to PA security forces for the 2018 fiscal year and $35 million for the 2019 fiscal year aimed at “supporting the long-term sustainability and effectiveness of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces and the Ministry of Interior.” Congress exempted these funds from March 2018 restrictions on US aid to the PA. The US, European Union, and a number of European states provide training and other support to PA security forces. For Hamas, Yahya Sinwar in May 2018 highlighted the support of Iran, noting that they “have provided us a lot of resources, which allowed for the development of our capabilities.” Qatar and Turkey have also provided financial support to Hamas authorities. These countries should suspend assistance to security forces involved in widespread arbitrary arrests and torture, including the PA Preventative Security Forces, General Intelligence Services, and Joint Security Committee and the Hamas-run Internal Security, until authorities take concrete steps to end arbitrary arrests and torture. Engagement with Palestinian security services should focus on ending arbitrary arrests and torture by security forces and ensuring accountability for torture, arbitrary arrests, and other serious crimes.

The ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, should consider arrests and treatment in custody of detainees by the PA and Hamas as part of any future investigation into the situation in Palestine. Given strong evidence that serious crimes have been committed in Palestine since 2014, Human Rights Watch has called on Bensouda to open a formal probe consistent with the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Moreover, social media platforms should scrutinize government requests for user data, including from Palestinian authorities, and refrain from disclosing user data to governments where the disclosure could contribute to serious human rights abuses.

Both the PA and Hamas regularly speak of Palestinian independence and unity, but detention and torture of rivals and critics undermine their best argument: the promise of greater freedom. National reconciliation and freedom will require reckoning with these serious abuses, holding perpetrators to account, and dismantling their machineries of repression.

Recommendations

To Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas

Publicly pledge to end arbitrary arrests, torture, and impunity by security forces.

Convene the Palestinian Legislature Council, so it can enact meaningful reform to the Penal Code.

Repeal the Electronic Crimes Law and ensure that any subsequent legislation complies with international standards and grows out of consultation with Palestinian civil society.

Empower a governmental body — consistent with the national preventive mechanism provided in the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture — staffed by independent professionals to make unannounced inspections of known and suspected detention sites, formal and informal, investigate complaints of abuse by the security services, prosecute these complaints in civilian court , and maintain a publicly available record of complaints received, investigations, and outcomes.

civilian , Instruct governors to cease using their executive power to order detention outside of the legal process.

To the Palestinian Legislative Council

Revise the Penal Code to: Repeal provisions that criminalize defamation, including article 144 on insulting a public official; article 189 on libel in print; article 191 on slandering a public official; and article 195 on insulting a higher authority; Rescind article 150, which criminalizes creating “sectarian strife.”

Review local law to ensure it is in line with Palestine’s international treaty commitments, including implementing legislation for the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and implementing the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol. This should include clearly criminalizing torture and crimes against humanity and ensuring the principle of command responsibility is set out in criminal law.

Enact legislation, consistent with the Palestinian Basic Law and international human rights law, granting civilian courts jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute alleged violations by security agencies against civilians, including journalists, in particular but not limited to cases of arbitrary and/or unlawful arrest and abuse of persons in custody.

Set up independent and effective mechanisms that will compensate all persons who have been arbitrarily detained.

To PA Attorney General Ahmad Barrak

Refrain from charging defendants under articles 144, 150 189, 191, and 195 of the Penal Code, and the Electronic Crimes Law.

Investigate, in a thorough, impartial, and timely manner, all torture allegations against law enforcement officials regardless of rank and whether the victim or family has formally filed a complaint.

Prosecute members of the security forces against whom there is evidence of criminal responsibility for those crimes, ensuring that all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice regardless of rank or political affiliation.

Order prosecutors at all levels to regularly conduct unannounced inspections of known and suspected detention sites and to investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

Order prosecutors not to use confessions and other evidence that may have been obtained by torture, except in cases against the alleged torturers.

Instruct judges not to use confessions and other evidence that may have been obtained by torture, except in cases against the alleged torturers.

Publish data on the number of investigations opened, cases referred for prosecutions, and number of convictions for abuses by security forces.

To the PA Interior Ministry, Preventive Security, Intelligence Services, and Joint Security Committee

Cease arresting and detaining people for their nonviolent criticism of authorities.

Cease the use of prolonged shabeh and publicly pledge that this tactic will not be used and any security officer who practices it will be prosecuted.

and publicly pledge that this tactic will not be used and any security officer who practices it will be prosecuted. Ensure cameras are installed in places of interrogation at all detention facilities.

Cooperate fully with any criminal investigations of abuses by security forces and preserve and disclose as requested all potential evidence of serious human rights violations in its possession.

Publish the names of any security officials disciplined and the disciplinary measures taken against them for abuses against detainees.

To PA Military Prosecutor Maj. Gen. Ismail Faraj

Investigate, in a thorough, impartial, and timely manner, all torture allegations against law enforcement officials regardless of rank and whether the victim or family has formally filed a complaint.

Prosecute members of the security forces against whom there is evidence of criminal responsibility for those crimes, ensuring that all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice regardless of rank or political affiliation.

Publish data on the number of investigations opened, cases referred for prosecutions, and number of convictions for abuses by security forces.

To Hamas Authorities in Gaza

Publicly pledge to end arbitrary arrests, torture, and impunity by security forces.

Stop arresting, detaining, and charging people for their nonviolent criticism of authorities.

Cease requiring detainees, as a condition of release, to commit to not exercise their right to engage in peaceful protest or criticism of authorities.

Investigate, in a thorough, impartial, and timely manner, all torture allegations against law enforcement officials regardless of rank and whether the victim or family has formally filed a complaint.

Prosecute members of the security forces against whom there is evidence of criminal responsibility for those crimes, ensuring that all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice regardless of rank or political affiliation.

Publish the names of any security officials disciplined and the disciplinary measures taken against them for abuses against detainees.

Refrain from charging defendants under vague laws, such as those that outlaw “misuse of technology” and “harming revolutionary unity.”

End prosecutions of civilians in military courts, including by refusing requests by security services for arrest warrants against civilians and by military prosecutors for remands of civilians in detention.

Ensure cameras are installed at all detention facilities.

Order prosecutors not to use confessions and other evidence that may have been obtained by torture, except in cases against the alleged torturers.

Establish a mechanism to track the number of detainees in all places of detention, including facilities operated by Internal Security as well as by all branches of the regular police, the drugs police, and police detectives, and publish these numbers monthly.

To the United States, European Union, and Other States

Issue a public statement expressing concern about the PA’s systematic arbitrary arrests of dissidents and abuse of those in their custody.

Suspend assistance to security forces involved in widespread arbitrary arrests and torture, including the PA Preventative Security Forces, General Intelligence Services, and the Joint Security Committee, until authorities take effective steps to stop arresting critics and torturing detainees and to investigate, prosecute, and punish security officers responsible for abuses, and publicly report on its compliance with these conditions. Engagement with Palestinian Authority security services should focus on ending arbitrary arrests and torture by security forces and ensuring accountability for torture, arbitrary arrests, and other serious crimes.

To Qatar, Iran, and Turkey:

Issue a public statement expressing concern about Hamas’ systematic arbitrary arrests of dissents and abuse of those in their custody.

Suspend assistance to security forces involved in widespread arbitrary arrests and torture, including the Hamas-run Internal Security, until authorities take effective steps to stop arresting critics and torturing detainees and to investigate, prosecute, and punish security officers responsible for abuses, and publicly report on its compliance with these conditions. Engagement with Hamas security services should focus on ending arbitrary arrests and torture by security forces and ensuring accountability for torture, arbitrary arrests, and other serious crimes.

To ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda

Open a formal investigation into serious crimes committed in Palestine.

Consider arrests and treatment in custody of detainees by the PA and Hamas, including the use of torture and arbitrary detention, as part of a future investigation of the situation in Palestine.

To Social Media Companies and Internet Service Providers

Scrutinize government requests for user data, including from Palestinian authorities, and refrain from disclosing user data where the disclosure could contribute to serious human rights abuses, including reprisals for peaceful expression.

Allow individuals who face risk of reprisal for their peaceful expression on social media to use pseudonyms on your platforms.

To the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Request a visit to conduct spot inspections of places of detentions operated by the PA and Hamas, as per the terms of Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which Palestine acceded to in December 2017.

To the State of Palestine

Extend open invitations to the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the special rapporteur on torture, the special rapporteur on the independence of the judiciary, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the subcommittee to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC to study relevant abuses in Palestine.

Cooperate with the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, even if Israeli authorities deny them entry, and publish immediately reports they produce.

Methodology

This report focuses on cases of detention by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas that occurred in 2016 and 2017, though on occasion refers to older events. It primarily evaluates the arrests themselves and treatment in custody and does not explore in-depth the legal proceedings against detainees. It also does not investigate detentions by the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza, which Human Rights Watch has covered elsewhere.

This report is based primarily on interviews conducted at different locations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories between September 2016 and September 2018. Human Rights Watch conducted a total of 147 interviews, 95 with ex-detainees and 52 with lawyers, NGO representatives, a doctor, and relatives of detainees.

In the West Bank, Human Rights Watch spoke to 47 former detainees, 10 family members, six lawyers, and 17 NGO representatives.

In Gaza, Human Rights Watch interviewed 48 ex-detainees, 10 family members, four lawyers, four NGO representatives, and a doctor.

Interviews were largely conducted individually and in Arabic. All interviews were conducted with the full consent of those being interviewed and all of the interviewees were told how Human Rights Watch would use the information provided. Human Rights Watch is withholding names of some detainees for their security, giving them instead pseudonyms, which are noted at first mention between quotation marks.

In some cases, Human Rights Watch was able to review photographic and video evidence, medical reports, court verdicts, and related documents, some of which are mentioned or reproduced and included in the report.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the PA Intelligence Services, Preventive Security, Military Prosecutor, and Interior Minister/Prime Minister, as well as to the Gaza Internal Security, Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry, and Hamas Political Office soliciting the respective authorities’ perspectives generally on the issues covered. Human Rights Watch for the most part did not ask the respective security agencies to respond to the individual cases documented in the report for the security of the former detainees.

Human Rights Watch received substantive responses from PA Intelligence Services, Preventive Security, Military Intelligence, police, and the Interior Ministry. Human Rights Watch also met with the PA Intelligence Services in the West Bank. In Gaza, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry, and police sent detailed responses to the Human Rights Watch letters. Hamas’ Political Office also responded, noting all questions should be referred to the formal governmental authorities. We have reflected the responses we received throughout this report and reprinted them in full, translated into English, in the appendices.

Israeli military authorities denied Human Rights Watch a permit to enter Gaza to conduct meetings with Hamas authorities on these issues. Limitations imposed by Israel on access to and from the Gaza Strip for human rights workers made it more difficult for the researchers of this report to investigate particularly sensitive cases.

Background

In March 2006, two months after winning Palestinian National Authority elections in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas formed a government headed by Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister. Since then, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has never convened with a quorum, due to Israel’s arrest of dozens of elected Hamas members, international opposition to Hamas’ role in the government, and political disagreements between Fatah and Hamas.

In June 2007, after months of clashes between Fatah and Hamas, Hamas seized control of Gaza’s security facilities and government buildings. In response, President Abbas dissolved the unity government that Fatah and Hamas had agreed to form four months earlier, dismissed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister, declared a state of emergency, and appointed an emergency government.

Since then, Hamas has effectively governed Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA), the West Bank. The parties have formed unity governments at various points over the last eleven years, most recently in October 2017, but Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have continued to control the security services in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively, and run government ministries in parallel.

Israeli authorities have also incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, the majority after trials in military courts, which have a near-100 percent conviction rate. In addition, Israel has placed, on average, hundreds every year in administrative detention using secret evidence without charge or trial. Some were detained or imprisoned for engaging in nonviolent activism. Many detainees, including children, face harsh conditions and mistreatment.

I. West Bank

Since its establishment in September 1993, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) has arbitrarily arrested scores of critics and mistreated detainees in its custody. In recent years, the Intelligence Services, Preventive Security, and the Joint Security Committee have been the PA agencies most involved in detaining those suspected of support for, or involvement in, Hamas or other Islamist groups and otherwise engaged in criticism of the PA or its security apparatus, or in other types of peaceful dissent.

Preventive Security said in a letter to Human Rights Watch that in 2016 and 2017, it had detained a total of 220 people because of social media posts, 65 university students, and two journalists. It justified these arrests on the basis of “illegal activities,” including expression that “falls outside the bounds of criticism and expression of opinions” and that “could have truly endangered the lives of civilians.” In particular, the letter linked the activities of those detained for social media posts, as well as the students and journalists, to their support for “criminal ideas of the illegal militias that seek a coup in the Gaza Strip.” Preventive Security also expressed hope that the arrests would “put them back on the path of order and lawfulness and to keep them away from closed thinking.”

As of April 2018, Preventive Security said that it held 125 detainees in detention and the Intelligence Services claimed it held 61 in detention.

Human Rights Watch did not ask the respective security agencies to respond to most of the individual cases documented in this section. However, they responded in general terms to the allegations of arbitrary arrest and torture. All security agencies deny carrying out arbitrary arrests, insisting that they strictly adhere to legal procedures. The police said in a letter to Human Rights Watch that officers did not in 2016 and 2017 “carry out arbitrary arrests on the basis of free expression or opinion or political or party affiliation.” Preventive Security and Intelligence made similar statements.

Authorities have also held dozens in administrative detention under a 1954 law pursuant to orders from the regional governor. No official figures are available regarding the number of administrative detentions, but in 2017 the Independent Commission for Human Rights recorded 103 cases and the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq documented 50 cases. This form of detention leaves detainees with uncertainty as to the basis and length of their detention, depriving them of due process and fair trial guarantees. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said, “The routine practice of detention on a governor’s authority is inconsistent with international law and raises concerns of arbitrary detention, not least as governors have apparently been using such power mainly to detain political opponents.”

All agencies also categorically said they reject torture and do not practice shabeh. A letter from the PA Interior Ministry presents a series of “policies and procedures to prevent torture,” including posters it says it sent to be posted at all detention facilities that list the rights of detainees. Preventive Security said there were no cases of shabeh in 2016, as “per verbal and written guidelines of the agency’s leader.” Lawyers at the Intelligence Services told Human Rights Watch that shabeh constitutes torture and is forbidden.

In addition to arbitrary arrests and torture, the PA has taken other steps apparently to restrict dissent, including blocking access in the West Bank to at least 29 news websites seen as sympathetic to Hamas and Fatah factions opposed to President Abbas. Civil society organizations also accuse the PA of tapping the phones of lawyers, journalists, and PLC members and selectively leaking their contents.

Political Opposition

Osama al-Nabrisi, Qalqilya

The Israeli army arrested Osama al-Nabrisi in the early 2000s and an Israeli military court sentenced him to 12 years in prison on what he said were charges of placing Molotov cocktails near an Israeli settlement. During his time in detention, he joined the Hamas political wing—Palestinians in Israeli prisons affiliate themselves with political factions, which look after the needs of its members and serve a key social role for detainees. Since his release in October 2014, al-Nabrisi, who is now 38 years old and unemployed, told Human Rights Watch that Palestinian security forces arrested him at least 15 times, the first time two days after his release from an Israeli prison, mostly by the order of the governor of Qalqilya and without charge, and largely interrogated him about his activities and relationships with co-inmates in the Israeli prison. In December 2014, PA prosecutors charged him with “collecting and receiving illegal money,” but a Qalqilya court acquitted him of all charges in March 2015.

On the evening of April 18, 2016, about 30 Preventive Security officers wielding batons, some masked, arrested him from his home in Qalqilya based on an order from the city’s governor, he said. Officers transferred him to Preventive Security headquarters in Qalqilya and made him stand facing the wall with his hands behind his back for about three hours. Officers then left him overnight in the cell with sewage and no mattress or blankets.

The next day, officers took him to an interrogation room and asked him again about his activities in Israeli detention and whom he grew close to. Around 1 a.m. that night, he said an interrogator banged on the door of his cell with a baton, took him to an interrogation room and said, “We will make life hard for you until you speak.” Officers made him sit on a plastic chair with his hands cuffed behind his back and his head lowered between his legs and left him that way until 6 a.m. of the next morning. The next day, he said officers also interrogated him for two hours in the evening with his hands cuffed behind his back, which led his hands to turn blue and left cuff marks visible on his wrists.

He said officers released him without presenting him to a prosecutor or a court, after he launched a hunger strike. Al-Nabrisi said that the repeated arrests have taken a significant toll on his family, particularly on his wife, whom he married in 2015 between arrests and who was pregnant during his most recent arrest. He said she regularly asks him, in tears, “How long are we going to live like this?”

Hamdan al-Sayyid, Ramallah

On the afternoon of April 13, 2017, officers from the Intelligence Services arrested Hamdan al-Sayyid, a 33-year-old father of two who teaches math at Birzeit University and at a high school in al-Bireh, a city neighboring Ramallah, from al-Manara, a round-about in the center of Ramallah, but released him around 6 p.m. Two hours later, al-Sayyid told Human Rights Watch that intelligence officers came to arrest him from his home and transferred him to the agency headquarters in Ramallah. Officers asked him if he participated in Hamas organized events, and about two men: Mohannad al-Halabi, a member of the Islamic Jihad killed by Israeli forces after stabbing two Israelis to death in Jerusalem, and Muhammad al-Qiq, who went on a 94-day long hunger strike in 2015 and whom Israeli forces rearrested and placed in administrative detention in January 2017. Security officers, who arrested al-Sayyid twice in 2015 after he had participated in demonstrations in solidarity with al-Qiq’s hunger strike, asked him for the names of people who participated in efforts to support al-Qiq. Days later, over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike to protest conditions in Israeli prisons.

Between interrogation sessions on April 14 and 15, al-Sayyid said officers covered his head with a canvas bag and forced him to stand in the middle of the detention center and lift his hands up for two hours. They released him on April 15 without presenting him to a prosecutor.

Intelligence Services also arrested al-Sayyid in December 2016, at gunpoint and from the middle of Ramallah while at a Christmas parade with his wife. Al-Sayyid said that, without identifying themselves, officers violently grabbed him after seeing him give some money to his younger brother. When he resisted, they pulled out their guns, shouted that they were from the Intelligence Services and one officer hit him with the stock of his gun on his back and another kicked him in his legs, causing him to fall and knocking off his glasses, which broke as a result. He said security officers also arrested his brother and hit his wife. They held al-Sayyid for two days, asking him not only about the money, but also about his relationships to other Hamas members, before releasing him without presenting him to a prosecutor.

Social Media

Issa Amro, Hebron

On September 3, 2017, Issa Amro, a 38-year-old prominent activist and coordinator of Youth Against Settlements, criticized in a Facebook post the arrest by PA security forces of a journalist in Hebron, Ayman al-Qawasma, who called for the resignation of President Abbas and Prime Minister Hamdallah. About an hour later, Amro received a call from his family telling him that two cars with 10 plain-clothed officers from Preventive Security were at his door. He called a contact with Preventive Security, who told him to turn himself in, he later told Human Rights Watch. He avoided his home that night, but, around 10 a.m. the next morning, Preventive Security told him that President Abbas had issued an order to arrest him.

Amro reported to agency headquarters in Hebron around 11:30 a.m. Later that day, officers ordered him to open his Facebook profile, but he refused. When he inquired about his status in the evening, officers told him to sleep in a cell until they could figure out what to do with him the next day.

At midnight on September 6, four plainclothes officers questioned him for about three hours about his activism, telling him that his protests give Israelis an excuse to close off more parts of Hebron and that his activism was motivated by “personal interest.” At around 11 a.m., Amro appeared before prosecutors, who ordered him detained for 24 hours to investigate him on charges of insulting “higher authorities” and the “defamation” of the Hebron Municipality, both crimes under Palestinian law, Amro said. At around 6 p.m., officers asked him about his work with Youth Against Settlements, his ties to other human rights organizations and to various media outlets, what he thought of the Palestinian president, and why he criticizes the PA and defends detained journalists.

The next day, prosecutors charged him under the Palestinian Penal Code with creating “sectarian strife” and insulting “higher authorities” and under article 20(1) of the Electronic Crimes Law of “creating a website … that aims to publish news that would endanger the public order of the state,” according to the indictment reviewed by Human Rights Watch. On this basis, a court extended his detention for four days. That night, an officer told Amro that security forces had ordered his release, but that he must obtain a release order from the court, which would not be open for another two days. Officers, though, continued to interrogate him about his activism and his view of President Abbas, accusing him of wanting to lead a “coup” against the PA, “ruining the Palestinian national project,” and working with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israeli settlers.

On September 10, officers released Amro after he posted a 1,000 Jordanian Dinars (JD) bail (US$1,410), but kept his two mobile phones, saying his case remains open. Amro, however, says he has not heard more about the case. Amro also continues to face charges in Israeli military court for his role in a protest.

Hamza Zbeidat, Jericho

Hamza Zbeidat, 33, is a project coordinator for the Maan Development Center covering the Jordan Valley. He says that authorities have summoned him at least four times over the years, mostly for Facebook posts. On May 9, 2016, he received a summons from the Preventive Security Forces and reported to their Jericho headquarters. Security forces immediately placed him under arrest. Zbeidat said a security officer asked about the reason for his arrest, to which he replied, “a political arrest.” He said the security officers then called him a liar, asking, “What did the PA ever do to you? You do not pay electricity?” Zbeidat denied that he was a liar and an officer slapped him, knocking off his glasses. Another officer then read one of Zbeidat’s Facebook posts from two months earlier in which he had written, “We will struggle against the PA like we struggle against the occupation.” They asked him, “Why are you attacking [the PA] and swearing at the president?” Zbeidat defended his right to speak and to criticize authorities, which prompted the officer to threaten to imprison him. Officers also asked him about his political affiliation, what he shares on Facebook, and why he criticizes the PA and not Hamas.

The next day, May 10, security officers told Zbeidat they were taking him to appear before prosecutors, but he said he never actually appeared before one and an officer later told him that his detention had been extended 15 days. That night though, security forces freed Zbeidat without a formal release order. He has not heard more about the case or whether he still faces charges.

Journalists

Jihad Barakat, Tulkarm

On the late afternoon of July 6, 2017, Jihad Barakat, a 29-year-old Ramallah resident and a journalist with Media Port, a Lebanon-based Palestinian media production company, took a shared taxi from Nablus to Tulkarm, a city in the northwest West Bank, he told Human Rights Watch. While stopped at the permanent Israeli checkpoint of Einab, at the entrance of Tulkarm, Barakat noticed a convoy of three cars behind the taxi, which he identified from his reporting as belonging to the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.

Despite the fact that the convoy belonged to the prime minister, it was waiting at the checkpoint in the line for ordinary cars, apparently receiving no special treatment. While remaining in the taxi, Barakat took four photographs of the convoy standing at the checkpoint from his mobile phone. Barakat said the prime minister and security officers did not appear in any of the photographs. After passing the Israeli checkpoint, the last car from the convoy stopped Barakat’s taxi. Two men in civilian clothing asked the driver who had taken the photographs and Barakat identified himself and provided his identification card and journalist card as requested. They also asked for Barakat’s cellphone. When he refused, they asked him to step out of the taxi.

They then put Barakat in a civilian car and took him to the Preventive Security Forces headquarters in Tulkarm, he said. They asked him why he took the photographs, and for whom he worked. They also asked him to provide his phone’s password. Barakat refused. Security forces then informed Barakat that he was under arrest and confiscated his cellphones and laptop. They did not explain the reasons of arrest, but most of the questions focused on the photographs. Officers left Barakat in a cell overnight.

The next day, three interrogators asked him again to provide the passwords for his cellphone and laptop. When he refused, an interrogator threatened Barakat to “move him to a place where they can reach an understanding with him.” Barakat interpreted this to mean that security forces would transfer him to the Jericho Joint Security Committee detention facility, where he believed he would be at risk of mistreatment and torture. He said interrogators also asked him about his views on relations between Hamas and Muhammad Dahlan, a Fatah leader who opposes President Abbas, and his political affiliation and activities during his years as a university student. Security officers moved Barakat that afternoon to Preventive Security headquarters in Beitunia, near Ramallah. That night, he said interrogators questioned him again about his views on current political events in three separate sessions and threatened to keep him in detention for 15 days.

Barakat said the prosecutor then charged him with “being found in … circumstances” that suggest “an unlawful or improper purpose,” and, on July 8, extended his detention for 48 hours. The next day, Barakat appeared again before the prosecutor and agreed to delete the four photographs, which he said he never published. The officers asked him to unlock his phone to ensure that he deleted the photographs. Officers released Barakat on July 9, but kept his cellphone and laptop for another 16 days. On January 4, 2018, the Ramallah Magistrate Court acquitted Barakat. The court verdict reviewed by Human Rights Watch provided that taking pictures of the prime minister convoy while present in a public road during work hours, does not constitute “an unlawful or improper purpose” or violate the prime minister’s privacy and that the officers did not have a legal arrest warrant when they arrested Barakat. The prosecutor appealed the decision, but a higher court denied the appeal.

Mamdouh Hamamra, Bethlehem

Mamdouh Hamamra, a 34-year-old journalist with the Quds News Channel, an outlet seen as sympathetic to Hamas, says Palestinian security agencies have summoned him 14 times since 2009 over his writings, including once for comparing President Abbas to a character in a popular television series.

On August 8, 2017, he told Human Rights Watch plain clothed men stopped him on the street in Houssan, a village west of Bethlehem where his parents live, and presented him with a summons from the Intelligence Services. They arrested him and transferred him to the agency headquarters in Bethlehem. PA forces arrested at least four other journalists across the West Bank over the next couple of days, apparently as a way to pressure Hamas to release pro-Fatah journalist Fouad Jarada, whom Hamas authorities in Gaza had detained on June 9, 2017.

On August 9, prosecutors said they would not charge Hamamra in “the hope” that Hamas would release Jarada and thus allow them to release Hamamra, he said. Prosecutors, though, charged him the next day under the Electronic Crimes Law, claiming that since 2008 he had published material on websites “linked to Hamas militias with the goal of undermining security, internal public order, and society.” They extended his detention for five days, which prompted Hamamra to go on hunger strike.

During his first three days in detention, Intelligence officers interrogated Hamamra daily about his personal life and reporting. On the fourth day, when he refused to submit to interrogation, officers responded that they would oblige him to do so, he told Human Rights Watch. They slapped him, slammed his body against the wall, and held him by the neck, threatening to hit him with a plastic hose, and putting him in painful stress positions and subjecting him to shabeh or positional torture. Officers told him that he had brought the assault on himself and that they intended to “break your hunger strike.”

Human Rights Watch spoke with two other journalists with publications considered pro-Hamas and who were detained the same week in similar circumstances: Ahmad al-Halaiqa of Quds News Channel in Hebron, arrested from his home around midnight on August 9, and questioned about reports critical of the PA and Facebook posts that “caused strife;” and Tarek Abu Zaid with Al Aqsa TV in Nablus, detained on August 6, around 11 p.m. and questioned about Facebook posts criticizing the Palestinian Prime Minister, the Saudi Arabian government, the arrest of another Al Aqsa TV journalist, and a sermon at a local mosque.[33]

Authorities released Hamamra, al-Halaiqa, Abu Zaid, and the other two journalists on August 14, 2017, a day after Hamas released Jarada. Hamamra said he has not heard more about the case or whether he still faces charges since his release.

Intelligence Services denied to Human Rights Watch that these arrests had anything to do with Jarada, claiming it pertaining instead to “intelligence” related to their “involvement” in inciting and protesting against the PA.

In July 2018, Israel’s Defense Minister declared Quds News Channel a terror organization and banned its operations in Israel.

Muhammad al-Haj, Ramallah

On September 14, 2017, a Military Intelligence official telephoned Muhammad al-Haj, a 38-year-old independent photojournalist, to ask him to report to their Ramallah headquarters, after earlier that day summoning his brother. Upon arrival, an officer interrogated him about an Interior Ministry memo he had published on Facebook, which instructs security forces to continue security coordination with Israel despite a public statement by President Abbas saying he had suspended security coordination. Al-Haj told Human Rights Watch that the officer said that “there are people bothered by you” since his publishing of the memo.

The officer also asked him for his social media accounts and email passwords, he said pursuant to a request from the prosecutor, but al-Haj refused to provide them. Al-Haj said he saw a paper on the officer’s desk from an internet service provider that included his online browsing history. The security officer also asked al-Haj to hand over his phone, threatening to interrogate him and his brother if he refused. Al-Haj complied, providing them with his passwords, and the officer told him to return several days later to retrieve it.

Upon his return several days later, the same officer asked him questions about particular journalists he knew. Al-Haj said he could not answer many of their questions. The officer let him leave later that day with his cellphone, but asked him to report again the next day. Al-Haj took his cellphone to a cellphone shop, where he was told that two applications that facilitated the monitoring of his cellphone had been installed. He uninstalled those applications.

Fearing arrest, al-Haj left the same day for Jordan, where he remains. He said Military Intelligence officers informed his lawyer that they want to “resolve the issue,” but al-Haj said he has no guarantee that he would not be arrested by other security agencies. His family, including his three children, remain in Ramallah. He told Human Rights Watch, “I do not want to live in a place where I am constantly harassed. ... The PA exists to look after me, not to intimidate me.”

Sami As-Sai, Tulkarm

On February 2, 2017, Sami As-Sai, 39-year-old independent journalist and researcher who has written for several news organs, including the Maan news agency and al-Fajr TV, reported to the Intelligence Services agency in Tulkarm in the northwest West Bank, after receiving a phone call the previous day requesting his presence. There, officers questioned him about his relationship to a Hamas member with whom he had shared a publicly accessible list of names of Palestinians in Israeli prisons in late 2015.

The next day, prosecutors came to his cell and extended his detention for 48 hours on the grounds of creating “sectarian strife.” He said he did not see a prosecutor again, but remained detained until February 8, when security officials told him they approved his lawyer’s request to release him. However, as he reached the main entrance of the agency, forces rearrested him and transferred him to the agency’s central headquarters in Jericho. When he arrived at the facility, blindfolded, he heard people say, “Welcome to the journalist,” “We had people with muscles here and they left without any,” and “Bring the dogs.” That night, he said, officers told him, “We are going to devour you, today is your day.” The next day, prosecutors extended his detention for 15 days on allegations of “money laundering” and “violating obligations of confidentiality imposed by his profession,” he said.

For the next seven days, officers interrogated As-Sai about his ties to Hamas, regularly using force to extract information. On his second night at the facility, he told Human Rights Watch that four officers tied his hands together using a rope and dragged him across a corridor to another room. There, they tied the rope to the room’s door and slowly pulled it to apply pressure on his arms. As-Sai said he did not know how long the shabeh lasted, since he passed out at some point. After he awoke, he said officers hit him about 20 times on the bottom of his feet. As-Sai begged them to stop. They responded by calling him “scum” and “vile” and accusing his wife of being a Hamas member. As-Sai said he felt so much pain that he could not to move his hands or feet and had to ask an officer to pull his pants up after he used the toilet.

In a subsequent interrogation, officers threatened that if he did not confess they would publicly accuse him of having several relationships with other women. They also offered to pay him if he provided the names of Hamas supporters who worked in the PA security services. When As-Sai said he did not know any, officers handcuffed his hands behind him and hung him from the ceiling with his feet touching the ground for about five to six hours. Later, officers threatened to imprison him for six months and prevent him from seeing his 10-year-old son, who has stage 4 kidney failure and may need dialysis or a kidney transplant.

After 13 days in Jericho, officers transferred As-Sai on February 21 back to Tulkarm, where he pleaded guilty, as part of an arrangement with the prosecutor, to creating “sectarian strife,” “money laundering,” and “disclosing secrets outside his profession.” The court sentenced him to 15 months in detention, but, after the prosecutor requested leniency, the court shortened the sentence to three months. As-Sai paid a fine of JD1,000 ($1,410) penalty in lieu of serving the three-months sentence and was released the next day.

The PA also detained As-Sai in 2012 and 2014, because, he said, of his Facebook posts. He also spent nine months in prison in 2016 after an Israeli military court convicted him of incitement on social media.

Demonstrations

Al-Tahrir Party (Rawhi Abu Rumeida, Fawaz al-Herbawi, Taqideen al-Khatib, Ibrahim Aqeel, Ismail Aqeel), Hebron

Palestinian security forces arrested dozens of members of al-Tahrir Party, an Islamist political party, in Hebron ahead of and following a peaceful February 2017 protest of a PA decision to give Waqf, or Islamic trust, land to the Russian Church in Hebron. Authorities detained 48 party members that day, including Ismail Aqeel, Ibrahim Aqeel, and Taqideen al-Khatib, who were arrested on the way to the demonstration at checkpoints the PA security forces had set-up on that day and held for a month. They then held Rawhi Abu Rumeida overnight the night of the protest when he went to the prosecutor’s office to follow up on those detained during the demonstration. They also detained 29 others, including Fawaz al-Herbawi for 18 days, after they took to the streets several weeks later to protest their arrests. Security forces beat several of the members while in detention and prosecutors filed a range of charges against them, including creating “sectarian strife,” “assaulting security forces,” “illegal assembly,” and “rioting.”

On February 4, the day of the protest, a joint force of the Intelligence Services and Preventive Security forces stopped the car of al-Khatib, a 27-year-old civil engineer, as he drove his relative Ismail Aqeel, a 49-year-old cook, from the village of Beit Kahil to Hebron for a medical check-up, the men told Human Rights Watch. Officers that morning also stopped the car of Ismail’s brother Ibrahim, a 46-year-old English teacher in Beit Kahil, at a checkpoint the PA security forces had set-up on that day as he headed toward Hebron for the protest. Officers transferred the men to the Intelligence Services station in Hebron.

The officers put the three men, along with one other, in a small room and, according to Ismail Aqeel, turned off the lights and told them, “If we hear any noise, we will break you.” Ten minutes later, they transferred the men to different rooms. Al-Khatib said an officer slapped him twice on the neck when he asked why he had been detained, then another officer slammed his body against a metal door four or five times and hit him four or five times on the face. A couple of hours later, officers questioned him about his political affiliation, activities during university, and the protest planned for that day. Interrogators asked similar questions of Ismail and Ibrahim Aqeel, accusing Ismail of lying when he said he had planned to go for a medical appointment. Later that night, officers transferred the three men, along with several other party members, to the Intelligence Services detention facility in Jericho.

That same day, security forces dispersed the demonstration, firing tear gas, hitting protesters with batons, Rawhi Abu Rumeida, 64, al-Tahrir Party’s Hebron field coordinator, told Human Rights Watch. All in all, security forces detained 48 members that day, half of whom were released within two days, according to Abu Rumeida. The Intelligence Services told Human Rights Watch that it had carried out these arrests because the demonstration was unlicensed and protesters attacked officers, an allegation that demonstrators interviewed by Human Rights Watch denied.

Abu Rumeida said he went to the prosecutor’s office that night to follow up on the cases of arrested members. When he protested the decision to detain the men for 48 hours, he said Preventive Security officers hit him on the forehead with the butt of their guns, causing him to bleed, and then held him overnight. Officers questioned him about the party, its members, and his role, before releasing him around 2 p.m. the following day.

Security forces held al-Khatib and the Aqeel brothers for 12 days in Jericho. Two days after their transfer, prosecutors charged them with creating “sectarian strife,” “assaulting security forces,” and “illegal assembly,” and extended their detention for 15 days. On February 16, authorities transferred al-Khatib, the Aqeels, and one other party member to the Intelligence Services compound in Bethlehem and transferred four other members to the Hebron compound. On February 23, though, a judge in Bethlehem refused to extend the detention of those detained there, so authorities transferred them to the Hebron compound, where a judge ordered them detained for another six days. After another extension, authorities released all the men, except for Ismail Aqeel, on March 7 on JD200 ($282) bail. Aqeel spent another two days detained at a Hebron police station over taxes they claimed he had failed to pay and released him on March 9, after he made the payment.

Meanwhile, on February 25, the party organized a sit-in to protest the arrests of its members earlier in the month. Security forces arrested 29 party members that day or in the aftermath of that protest, 10 of whom remained in custody for more than a week, Abu Rumeida said. Al-Herbawi, a 28-year-old who works for an office supply company and attended the sit-in, told Human Rights Watch that security forces dispersed the peaceful sit-in by firing tear gas, shooting live ammunition in the air, and arresting demonstrators. Two days later, al-Herbawi said eight plain-clothed Preventive Security officers showed up at his office and arrested him. In the car, officers asked him about the party and the sit-in, but he refused to answer. When they arrived at Preventive Security’s Hebron compound, seven officers put him on the hood of the car and for about 60 seconds hit him across his body, until he screamed and someone wearing a uniform came out of the station, told the others to stop, and took him in, al-Herbawi said. Several hours later, officers transferred him to an interrogation room and instructed him to sit on a wooden chair with steel legs. Officers mostly asked about the protest, but al-Herbawi refused to answer, prompting an interrogator to threaten to “break your legs, so you cannot stand.” After this session, officers placed him in solitary confinement for five days without interrogating him further. They then transferred him to a room with other detainees and released him on March 9, 2017, after 11 days in custody.

Four days later, on March 13, 13-14 officers, some plain-clothed and others in uniforms of the Intelligence Services, arrested al-Herbawi at his office and took him to the Intelligence Services compound in Hebron. There, officers told him they “spent 14 days looking for him,” claiming to have no knowledge of his arrest by Preventive Security.[47] They questioned him about the sit-in and asked him to sign a paper committing to work with them. He refused and the next day prosecutors charged him with “attacking security forces” and “participation in riots,” and the court ordered his detention for six days. Authorities did not interrogate him during this period and, on March 19, the court released him on JD200 ($282) bail. Ten days later, it acquitted him of all charges.

On University Campuses

Alaa Zaqeq, Hebron

On April 24, 2017, security forces arrested 28-year-old Alaa Zaqeq, a graduate student at Hebron University and imam in Beit Umar a village near Hebron in the south West Bank, while visiting his in-laws’ house in the al-Aroub refugee camp with his then-pregnant wife. Zaqeq said eight cars from the Intelligence Services conducted the raid without a warrant and pushed him by the neck out of the house and to the cars, threatening to hit him with batons if he resisted. The security forces, who also arrested Zaqeq’s brother-in-law during the raid and held him for four days, transferred Zaqeq to the Intelligence Services headquarters in Hebron before moving him to their Jericho detention facility the same day. Officers told him, “We are going to make you pay the price for the coup in Gaza.”

Upon arrival, officers moved Zaqeq, blindfolded and handcuffed, through the detention facility, shaking and slamming his body against the walls until he reached the warden’s office. An officer told him that this was his “welcome.” The warden slapped Zaqeq several times, hit him on his neck, and instructed other officers to “hang” Zaqeq. He told Human Rights Watch that officers then cuffed his hands behind his back and tied them by cloth to the door and kept him in that position, blindfolded, for about 45 minutes. During that time, an officer at one point struck him in the back with a stick. Zaqeq said that his hands went numb and that he later lost feeling in his shoulders. Officers then escorted him back to the warden’s office, slapping and punching him.

The next day, prosecutors extended his detention for 48 hours after asking him if he supported Hamas. Back at the detention facility, an officer told Zaqeq that the “real party” would start that night and that an interrogator nicknamed the “Juicer” would treat him like a “mop.” That night, Zaqeq said officers again subjected him to shabeh or positional torture in the bathroom, cuffing his hands behind his back and tying them to the bathroom door, and then dragged him to the warden’s office, where another officer again beat him.

At the warden’s office, Zaqeq met the Juicer. He asked Zaqeq to stand up, but Zaqeq said he could not. The Juicer pulled him up by his shirt and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. He then began asking Zaqeq about his activities with the Islamic Bloc, the student group affiliated with Hamas, at the university. When he failed to answer satisfactorily, the Juicer subjected him to shabeh. The Juicer told him he would “leave this place on a wheelchair” and “wearing a skirt and a headscarf.”

This pattern of interrogations and abuse continued over the course of 24 days in Jericho. Zaqeq said the shabeh he experienced included forcing him to stand with his legs spread out and hands up or in a half squat, all of which left his body trembling. To elicit a confession, officers in one instance told him that a member of his family had fallen ill; in another, they threatened to arrest his mother, sister, and wife. These threats led Zaqeq to confess to financing the Islamic Bloc at the university, even though he told Human Rights Watch that this was untrue.

Zaqeq said he told officials that he had asthma, a muscle rupture in his chest, and nerve inflammation. According to Zaqeq, they replied, “We do not care” and “Even if you die, no one will care.” He saw a doctor at one point when he could not move his thumb and legs and felt pain in his shoulders. The doctor gave him painkillers, telling him he could not take him to the hospital. Sleeping for two weeks without a mattress in the cell exacerbated Zaqeq’s pain.

After three weeks of detention, security forces released Zaqeq on May 17, 2017, on a JD200 bail ($282). Zaqeq said that Palestinians interrogators told him that they detained him to protect him from the Israelis, who wanted to arrest him.

Just over two months later, on July 23, Israeli forces arrested him and placed him in administrative detention without charge or trial for four months. The Israeli army renewed his administrative detention in October 2017, before releasing him in March 2018. Israeli forces rearrested him in September 2018 and ordered him placed in administrative detention for four months.

Fares Jbour, Hebron

On January 8, 2017, around 8 a.m., Fares Jbour, a 23-year-old electrical engineering student at the Polytechnic University in Hebron, presented himself to the Intelligence Services headquarters in Hebron, after an officer told his father in a phone call on January 5, that he had to turn himself in, and Jbour himself received a text message summoning him.

One month earlier, Jbour had participated in an initiative organized by the Islamic Bloc, a student group affiliated with Hamas, at the university to sell books and electronic devices for students at discounted prices. He said that on December 8, 2016, the second day of the drive, Jbour heard that officers from the Intelligence Services were meeting with university administrators and, fearing arrest, Jbour and seven other students held a sit-in. About 25 university private security officers broke up the sit-in and instructed everyone to leave campus. Within a week, officers arrested about 10 students, including several who participated in the sit-in, and raided Jbour’s house, which he had been avoiding. Authorities questioned those they had arrested about the exhibition and about a Facebook page that identified officers who arrested students and university administrators who worked with security forces, the other students told Jbour. As he studied for exams, Jbour said he received a text message to report to the agency.

Jbour reported to the agency headquarters in Hebron on January 8, where, he said, officers questioned him about the book drive, the funding, and other members of the Islamic Bloc, and the Facebook page, which Jbour said he was not involved in. Frustrated with his answers, interrogators threatened to transfer him to the Intelligence Services detention facility in Jericho, where, they said, “People confess to things they know and do not know” and from which he would emerge a “different person.”

The next day, officers told Jbour they were taking him for a medical check-up before his release, but then drove him to the central Intelligence Services detention facility in Jericho. Upon arrival, officers blindfolded him, declaring, “If you did not confess in Hebron, you will confess here.” They made him stand for two hours with his hands up. Interrogators questioned him about the Facebook page and the exhibition, he said hitting him on his side with a plastic hose, when he failed to answer or they did not believe him, about once every five minutes, he said.

Four officers then moved him to a smaller room, handcuffed his hands above his head and tied the handcuffs by a rope to a hook in the center of the ceiling room and slowly tightened the pressure, subjecting him to shabeh for about five minutes. They then untied him, made him squat on his knees, blindfolded him, placed a pipe between his knees and added some weight to his back. They kept him in this position, which puts pressure on his legs and blocks blood flow, for about an hour, while asking again about the activities of the Islamic Bloc, periodically hitting him with a hose on his hips and warning that “what is coming is greater.” That night, officers whipped his feet with a hose about six or seven times, pleading with him “to just confess.”

The next day, prosecutors charged him and extended his detention for 24 hours. The charges included “weapons possession,” “forming militias,” “heading an armed gang,” and “money laundering,” Jbour said. The next day, a court extended his detention for another 15 days. Two weeks later, officers told him that the court extended his detention for another 15 days, without referring him to court.

Jbour’s interrogation at Jericho lasted for five or six days, during which they continued to subject him in shabeh and beat him. One night, Jbour recounted, three officers placed him on his back and, for about two hours, they alternated hitting him with a baton and kicking him. They told him, “You are affiliated with Hamas, who is making a joke of you. A day will come for you. If you do not talk, you will see something you have never seen before.” About a week into his detention, officers moved Jbour to solitary confinement, where he spent about a week before they moved him to a room with other detainees. He said he lost consciousness seven times during his detention, once for about 10 minutes during an interrogation session.

Authorities released him on January 31 without bringing him to trial. Jbour told Human Rights Watch that following his arrest he still has nightmares that “the cell is strangling me and I cannot breathe.”

Security forces also arrested Jbour five times in 2016 for more than 50 days in total over his activism, including once for 23 days in the Intelligence Services detention facility in Jericho.

In October 2017, Israeli forces arrested Jbour and, on November 11, 2017, an Israeli military court sentenced him to 11 months in prison on charges of membership and participation in the Islamic Bloc.

Opposition Strongholds

“Zaid” and “Husam,” Balata Refugee Camp

Palestinian security forces detained “Zaid” and “Husam,” young men from the Balata Refugee Camp, widely known as a central point of resistance to President Abbas, in early 2017 on allegations of criminal activity and, they said, subjected them to prolonged torture.

Balata Refugee Camp, home to about 27,000 refugees and seen as a base of support for President Abbas’ rival Muhammad Dahlan, has in recent years become the site of frequent clashes between residents and Palestinian security forces. Tensions escalated after the PA launched a security campaign in August 2016 focused on Balata.

Zaid, a 32-year-old civil servant, told Human Rights Watch that, as he approached his office one day in December 2016, he saw a large group of men who he later realized were Palestinian security forces outside his office open fire in his direction and, after he put his hands up, arrest him. He said officers took him to al-Jneid prison in Nablus, where they blindfolded and repeatedly struck him thirty minutes into his detention, before transferring him to the Joint Security Committee detention facility in Jericho. Upon arrival at Jericho, he said he received a “welcome” from some 20 to 30 officers lined up on both sides of him and who cursed and hit him as he walked to a cell.

Later that night, an interrogator asked Zaid about a murder he said he had witnessed one month earlier. When he explained that he had no part in it, the interrogator told him, “If you do not speak, you will be destroyed. You will speak in spite of yourself.” Officers then handcuffed his hands behind his back, covered his face, and put him in “the Closet,” a room he described as roughly 60 centimeters by 60 centimeters in size where he said he had difficulty breathing. He said they kept him there for 22 hours a day for 22 consecutive days. Later, they had him stand on a wooden box and tied his handcuffed hands to a rope, which they gradually raised to stretch his arms. He said they kept him like this for 20 hours, before letting him sleep. They then returned him to shabeh. In subsequent interrogations, officers threatened to return him to shabeh if he did not speak.

At one point during his first three days of detention, Zaid said officers in the corridor put wires on the back of his shoulders and twice shocked him for about 25 to 30 seconds, and once tied a cord around his penis for eight or nine hours, causing his penis to swell and turn blue. On his third day, while handcuffed and blindfolded, he said a guard pushed him to the ground and, for ten minutes, repeatedly hit and kicked him, fracturing his knee and causing him to lose consciousness. He woke 20 minutes later to find himself with a doctor.

Officers continued to periodically conduct shabeh during his first 25 days in detention, though stopped for the last 50 days. Authorities transferred him to a prison in Nablus for trial on a range of charges, but a court acquitted him, and he was released. He said security forces several months later detained him again on similar charges for 20 days in al-Jneid prison in Nablus but did not mistreat him in custody.

In January 2017, unemployed 29-year-old Husam, who spent nine months in detention with Preventive Security in 2015 on charges of incitement and firing weapons, turned himself in after authorities had sought him out in relation to clashes in Balata. Husam’s brother, who also asked to withhold his real name, told Human Rights Watch that Husam turned himself in only after Nablus’ mayor assured him that security forces would not mistreat him and that the mayor would personally visit him once a week. The brother said the mayor called Husam’s family one week later, but then stopped providing updates.

Husam’s father visited him in Jericho a month-and-a-half into his detention and noticed that his shoulder was dislocated and nose and thumb broken, the brother said. Zaid told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed the events that he believed caused Husam’s shoulder injury: about 20 meters in front of his cell, he saw an interrogator hit Husam with a chair on his shoulder while his arms were being pulled by rope while tied behind his back, causing him to scream in agony. He said the eight officers around him began to hit him and “treat him like an animal.” Immediately after the visit, Husam’s father complained about the treatment of Husam and authorities transferred him to Nablus for medical treatment.

Two weeks later, though, they transferred Husam back to Jericho. The family heard nothing for two weeks, until Husam called and said officers had kept him in shabeh from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, put him in “the Closet,” and regularly kicked and hit him, his brother said. Husam appeared to have lost almost half his body weight, according to his brother, who visited him in July 2017. Husam told his brother that authorities had laid 17 charge sheets in front of him and told him he can choose whichever one he wishes to confess to, his brother said. Husam appeared several times in court, apparently to answer to charges of firing guns, armed robbery, resisting security forces, and forming a “criminal gang.” He remains detained as of April 2018, in the maximum-security section at the Jericho Rehabilitation and Reform Prison, where he is not allowed to interact with other inmates, according to his brother.

Reflecting on what happened to him and the situation in Balata, Zaid said, “I wanted to get married and build a house, but, if I had the chance to leave, I would do it. There is no dignity here.”

Following armed clashes in Nablus’ Old City in which one person was killed in December 2015, security forces detained several members of the Halawa family. Rumors that one member of the Halawa family died in detention sparked clashes that resulted in the deaths of two PA officers on August 18, 2016. In response, Prime Minister Hamdallah vowed to “impose security,” “arrest all fugitives,” and end “a state of lawlessness.” In the days following the deaths of the officers, security forces rounded up 250 local residents, including 30 from the Halawa family.

Three residents of the Old City, including two members of the Halawa family, died apparently while in the custody of PA security forces. Palestinian security agencies claim that two of them, Khaled al-Aghbar and Fares Halawa, died in armed clashes on August 19, 2016, but the Palestinian statutory watchdog Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) found “strong evidence” that “contradicted the official statements of security agencies,” including forensic medical reports and accounts from three eyewitnesses who saw officers detain the men while alive. Two days later, Ahmad Halawa died while in detention; Nablus’ mayor later acknowledged he died after a severe beating, which he described as an “unacceptable mistake.”

Other members spent long stretches in detention. On August 30, 2016, security forces arrested a Halawa relative, who said he spent 25 consecutive days in a solitary cell in the Joint Security Committee detention facility in Jericho.

Another relative, “Mustafa,” originally detained on July 27, 2016, told Human Rights Watch that he spent nearly a year in detention, mostly rotating between detention facilities in Jericho where he was tortured. He told Human Rights Watch that during a three-week stretch in Preventive Security custody in summer 2016, officers subjected him to two to six hours of shabeh daily, handcuffing his hands behind his back and stretching his arms, and periodically beat him for several minutes at a time with a plastic hose. He later spent 12 days at the Joint Security Committee detention facility, where they subjected him to regular shabeh sessions lasting two to four hours. Authorities charged him with “formation of a criminal gang” and “possession of a firearm without license,” but a court acquitted him and released him in February 2017.

National Security Forces rearrested Mustafa in June 2017, this time in relation to the escape of Imad Halawa from detention, the main suspect in the killing of the officers. Security forces detained Mustafa for 134 days in detention facilities in Jericho, 107 of which at the Joint Security Committee detention facility, more than half of which in a solitary cell without contact with other inmates. Prosecutors charged him with “hiding a fugitive of justice” in relation to the escape, but a court again acquitted him and released him in October 2017 on the condition that he reported daily to a security force agency in Nablus until January 2018.

Officers from the National Security Forces also in June 2017 arrested “Rami,” a 32-year-old neighbor of the Halawas, from his house, hitting him with the stock of the gun on his back, and stomping on him, he said. Officers moved him to al-Jneid prison in Nablus, where interrogators asked him about the Halawa family and their friends and acquaintances and told him, “We will stomp on you just as we stomped with our boots on [Ahmad] Halawa.” They also asked him if he had harbored Imad Halawa after he escaped from detention, periodically slapping him on his face and neck, he told Human Rights Watch.

That same night of his arrest, officers transferred Rami to the national security agency headquarters in Jericho, where about 20 officers greeted him by pushing him around and hitting him. They placed him for eight days in a 60 cm by 60 cm cell known as “the Closet,” letting him out for only about two hours a day and continuing to interrogate him about the Halawa family. He spent 14 days in solitary confinement, he said. Prosecutors charged Rami with “aiding an escapee or a prisoner” and extended his detention twice for 15 days each time.

After a month, officers moved him to the Nablus Rehabilitation and Reform Prison, until a court ordered him released on bail on August 4. However, police arrested Rami at the prison’s doors as he was being released and transferred him to a police station in Nablus, saying they needed a release order from the Joint Security Committee in Ramallah. They released him on August 10 with the charges still outstanding, after 71 days in custody.

Criminal

“Hassan,” Jenin

On April 19, 2017, Palestinian police arrested “Hassan,” then 17, who they accused of theft, from his home in Jenin, in the northern West Bank. They took him to the Jenin police station, where officers interrogated him about stealing a cellphone and agricultural equipment. Before questioning him, officers tied his right hand to a plastic chair and ordered him to hold up the chair for four hours or else they would beat him, Hassan told Human Rights Watch. Next, they sat him on a wooden chair and tied his hands to it, and then interrogated him about the stolen cellphone over the course of about two hours. They also threatened to transfer him to Jericho, where security forces are known to practice torture, unless he confessed. Later that day, the general prosecutor told him he faced charges of theft.

Hassan said security officers held him in the juvenile section of Jenin’s Reform and Rehabilitation prison. During the first three days of his detention, they transferred him in the early mornings to the police station, where they interrogated him until the late evening without a lawyer, relative, or juvenile protection counselor present.

At one point, Hassan said, five police officers shackled his hands behind his back and tied them to a rope hanging from a door. They then slowly pulled the rope, causing his hands to raise until the tip of his feet barely touched the floor. In another incident, they laid him on the ground, cuffing his hands behind his back and placing his feet on a plastic chair. Two or three officers then took turns hitting the bottom of his feet and his legs with a baton. A police officer also kicked him on his back, called him an “animal,” and insulted his family, he said. Unable to bear the pain, Hassan confessed to stealing the agricultural equipment.

Security officials did not allow Hassan’s family to visit him during his week in detention and only permitted him to speak to them by phone the day before his release after the intervention of his lawyer. Security forces also refused to accept clean clothes family members brought Hassan, forcing him to remain in his same clothes all week. Hassan met with the juvenile protection counselor one day before his release. The security forces released Hassan on a personal bail of JD200 ($282), paid by one of his relatives. He said that he continued to feel pain for a full week after his release. Hassan’s lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the charges remain outstanding.

Sarie Samandar, Ramallah

On the early morning of June 2, 2017, a street fight broke out in Ramallah between a group of eight Christian Palestinians, including 22-year-old Jerusalemite Sarie Samandar, who worked at an East Jerusalem hotel, and another group of youths. Officers arrested Samandar and his friends, all Christian Palestinians, shortly after the quarrel ended, and transferred them to a police station in the Ein Musbah neighborhood of Ramallah.

When they arrived, Samandar said, two uniformed officers made them stand against the wall and then one of them knocked his head against the wall and slapped him on the back of his neck, while the other hit him on his legs to separate them. One of them then grabbed his gold cross necklace and asked, “What is this?” before tearing it off his neck and handing it back to him. The officers then made the group walk for several minutes between two lines of about 35 plain-clothed officers, who slapped, kicked, and hit them with their fists and batons, as they made their way to the interrogation rooms, Samandar said. When Samandar arrived at the top of a staircase at the end of the line, an officer kicked his chest, causing him to fall back down the staircase. That officer, though, later filed an assault complaint against him and his friends, Samandar said.

Upon entering the interrogation rooms in two groups, about four officers forced Samandar and his friends to stand with their backs against the wall and warned them that if they moved or talked, “God’s anger will fall upon you.” One officer told them, “You drank alcohol and we will crush you. You have been drinking during Ramadan.” Another said, “Daesh [ISIS] needs to come for you … you are crusaders and invaders who came to this country,” a reference to their Christian faith. Samandar said he also heard other officers say, “They are Christian pigs, they should be left to rot in prison.”

The next day, security officers released them with an order to appear before the court the following day.

Samandar said the following day the judge sentenced all eight of them to seven months in prison for assaulting an officer and drinking in public, a crime under Palestinian law, despite having neglected to perform alcohol tests on them. The judge lowered the sentence to three months after the officer dropped the case against them. Upon agreement with their parents, the judge agreed to release them that day without serving the sentence, after he paid a JD450 ($634) penalty.

Samandar said he missed four days of work as a result of his arrest and the court hearing. He filed a complaint with the military prosecutor against the officers who allegedly assaulted him, but said he was not aware of any action being taken