BIRZEIT, WEST BANK // A child swings on a trapeze bar, another bounces and flips on the trampoline while others learn to juggle or catch a flying diablo.

Gathered in a circus tent in the West Bank city of Birzeit is a group of 30 Palestinian children from the Jalazone refugee camp who have come to learn circus tricks.

For some, this is a place for them to express their creativity and find peaceful ways of resisting the Israeli occupation. For others, this will be their future vocation and they will go on to become professional circus performers.

But behind their laughter and hopes for the future, a dark cloud hangs over the Palestinian Circus School.

One of their key trainers, Mohammed Faisal Abu Sakha, 24, who specialised in working with disabled children, has been held without charge or explanation by Israel for nearly seven weeks.

On December 14, Mr Abu Sakha boarded a bus near his parent’s home in Jenin to return to the circus school in Birzeit, next to Ramallah.

At the Zaatara checkpoint, near Nablus, the Israeli army stopped the bus, asked specifically for Mr Abu Sakha and arrested him.

He has since been placed under administrative detention, a controversial practice in which Israel holds Palestinian prisoners without charge or trial for periods of up to six months which can be renewed indefinitely.

Love for the disabled

It was the second time Mr Abu Sakha has been detained. In 2009, when he was just 17 years old, he was arrested for throwing stones at Israeli forces in Jenin. They detained him for one month and ordered his family to pay 2,500 shekels (Dh2,320) before releasing him.

This time, however, the army has refused to allow Mr Abu Sakha’s family to visit him and have moved him from prison to prison — a common practice in Israel that makes it harder for families to locate the inmate in an attempt to visit.

According to the Israeli military, Mr Abu Sakha was arrested “due to danger he posed to the security of the region” and he could not be put on trial “because of the circumstance of the case”.

The military accused Mr Abu Sakha of being involved in activities with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a left-wing militant group considered by Israel to be a “terrorist organisation”.

Nayef Abdullah, the head trainer and education programme coordinator at the circus school, has known Mr Abu Sakha since they started working together at the school in 2007.

Abdullah, 31, was central to training Mr Abu Sakha to become a circus trainer.

“He is a very cute, sweet guy — he has a sense of humanity, he’s happy to make people laugh. He was always laughing and always had a big smile.

“He loved to teach children, especially children with a disability,” Mr Abdullah said.

Abdullah said Mr Abu Sakha often volunteered to work with disabled children such as Mohammed Barghouti, a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, with whom he helped to strengthen his lower body. Mr Abu Sakha even made a special light-weight hula hoop by hand to help Mohammed build up his leg muscles.

School arrests

A founding member of the school and one of its directors, Jessika Devlieghere, said this is not the first time a student, teacher or trainer from the school has been arrested.

It is not a problem unique to the school — it is just part of the reality of life under Israeli occupation, said Ms Devlieghere, a Belgian married to the Palestinian general director of the school, Shadi Zmorrod.

In 2012, a student at the circus school, Muhammad Salaymah, was shot on his 17th birthday while he was on his way to buy himself a birthday cake in Hebron.

The Israeli army said he drew a fake gun on a soldier, leaving another soldier no choice but to shoot him. However, authorities have refused to release surveillance footage of his shooting.

In 2014, another student, Mohammed Hamoudi, narrowly escaped death when he was shot in the heart by Israeli forces during Nakba day protests at Ofer prison.

“The occupation is in every single fibre of our existence — because all our students are members of the society and they represent some of the stories we are facing. We are not outside of it, we are part of it — living it, experiencing it on a very daily basis,” she said.

‘Cruel and inhuman’

Despite the pervasiveness of arrests, detention and deaths in the occupied Palestinian territories, Ms Devlieghere said she was still shocked by the administrative detention of Mr Abu Sakha.

Some 660 Palestinians are currently being held without trial for six months or more, according to Addameer, a prisoners’ support and human rights association.

According to Amnesty International, Israel’s use of administrative detention may amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The use of secret evidence denies detainees the right to a fair hearing and are unable to mount a proper defence against their charges.

Amnesty field staff and Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem, said since an escalation of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories in October, those arrested under the administrative detention law had grown to the highest since 2008.

International law stipulates that administrative detention is only allowed in the most extreme cases — to stop a real, or immediate security threat.

However, administrative detention has become a regular tool used by Israeli forces.

“It’s very scary that administrative detention can be used so easily. There are no grounds whatsoever for his arrest, we’ve known Mohammed since 2007 — we’ve seen this kid through,” Ms Devlieghere said.

The school would not comment specifically on Israeli accusations that Mr Abu Sakha was involved with the PFLP, and said it was only speculation at this stage.

An online petition created by friends and family, calling for the immediate release of Mr Abu Sakha, has received 12,000 signatures since the end of December. Abdullah believed Mr Abu Sakha’s movements had been restricted by Israeli forces especially after his first arrest. He has not been able to leave the West Bank since 2009.

“When he was detained the first time the soldiers asked him what he was doing with his life, he said he was helping his father in the dry cleaners and he said he worked in the circus — they told him he would never do circus again and since then they have declined his permit to travel overseas,” he said.

Non-violent resistance

The circus, which is part of the school, is often invited to perform at events internationally and have previously performed in Belgium and Germany.

The school hopes to help Palestinian youngsters find creative and non-violent ways to resist the Israeli occupation, said Abdullah, who takes pride in his role as their trainer.

“We aim to transfer their energy from negative to positive through circus techniques. We are trying to save them from being arrested and getting killed.

“It’s not because we don’t want them to resist. There’s a difference. It’s a non-violent way — because we deserve to live, to have freedom, to study, and we deserve to be able to move.”

He believes that their resistance can be communicated through body language instead. “If you see an Israeli soldier, don’t throw stones, take your diablo and play with it. “We are trying to create a space where they really feel free — because Palestine is not free. I call the Palestinian Circus School the freedom place, because when we train here you are free to express yourself,” said Abdullah.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae