A U.S. teen's Israeli prison ordeal

Held for months, he's accused of throwing rocks in West Bank

- By Nabih Bulos

MAYA ALLERUZZO For The Times

MOHAMMED Zaher Ibrahim, who is now 16, was arrested in February.

The three military vehicles growled to a stop in front of Zaher Ibrahim’s elegant two-story home in this village in the occupied West Bank.

It was 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 16, and the Israeli soldiers — two dozen of them, family members said — ran up and hammered at the door. When Ibrahim opened, they asked for his youngest son, Mohammed Zaher Ibrahim, then 15, and a Palestinian American from Florida, like the rest of the family.

Moments later, Mohammed was blindfolded, family members said, his hands zip-tied behind his back, and pushed into one of the vehicles.

"We didn’t even know what was happening," his father said.

As he was transported for interrogation, according to testimony Mohammed gave to a lawyer from Defense for Children International-Palestine, a children's rights organization, soldiers beat him with their rifle butts.

Ibrahim called friends, who reassured him that Israeli raids were a part of life in the West Bank. His son would spend the night, maybe another day, they said, and then be released.

More than eight months later, Mohammed is still in prison.

He joins hundreds of Palestinian children in Israeli detention, according to rights groups, almost half of them held without charge or trial in an incarceration system that critics say is designed to work against them.

Mohammed, who has since been transferred to Ofer, an Israeli military prison in the West Bank where allegations of detainee abuse are common, is charged with two counts of throwing rocks at Israeli vehicles and damaging one of them, according to a charge sheet obtained by The Times.

MAYA ALLERUZZO For The Times