Palestinian-American teen detained in Israel for nine months without charge in court

A Palestinian-American teenager is expected to appear in an Israeli court later this week after being detained for nine months without charge.

Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, who lives in Florida, was arrested in February on suspicion of throwing rocks at Jewish settlers while on vacation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he denies.

Last month, 27 Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate wrote to the U.S. State Department urging the Trump administration to take more measures to force Israel to release him.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Mohammed had committed a “serious and potentially fatal crime” and that the court was proceeding in accordance with due process.

The boy’s family disagreed.

“You can ask anyone you know, he was a really sweet boy who loved his sports, his PlayStation and school,” his father, Zahar Ibrahim, told me, wiping tears from his eyes.

Israeli soldiers arrested Mohammed during a midnight raid on his holiday home in the Palestinian village of al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya. He was 15 years old at the time.

Mr Ibrahim has not seen or spoken to Mohammed since February.

“He was just a normal funny kid who loved and respected everyone,” Mr. Ibrahim told me at the holiday home.

Mr Ibrahim, who has been unable to speak to his son for nine months, has only heard about his detention through court documents and says his son was forced to plead guilty.

He said Mohammad woke up surrounded by Israeli soldiers, according to court documents. “They tied him up, blindfolded him and threw him on the floor of the jeep and took him wherever they took him.”

Ibrahim, a father of four who runs an ice cream shop in Florida, said his son only admitted to throwing the rocks because soldiers beat him.

Israel’s prime minister’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment on whether Mohammed was detained without charge or on allegations that he was beaten while in custody.

The U.S. Embassy assigned a case worker who had visited Mohammad in prison. Mr Ibrahim said they told him he had lost a lot of weight and was in poor health.

He had a message for President Donald Trump, another Florida resident.

“Do what you said from day one. You know America first. He’s an American, he’s a citizen, he’s a kid. So, you know, his (Trump’s) job as president is to protect Americans, and we don’t see that with Muhammad.”

“What good luck is there with an American passport?” Mr. Ibrahim said. “It’s not helpful. This is usually one thing where foreign passports come into play, but the State Department doesn’t really do anything about it.”

The US State Department is “closely tracking Mr. Ibrahim’s case and working with the Israeli government on the case,” a State Department spokesman told the BBC.

They said U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and embassy staff in Jerusalem were also “deeply involved,” but later added that they could not comment further “due to privacy and other concerns.”

Because Mohammed is a U.S. citizen and was vacationing in the West Bank when he was arrested, his case has attracted the attention of U.S. lawmakers.

“The United States did have influence in this case,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at his office in Washington, D.C. “It just failed to use its influence, which is a huge dereliction of duty.”

He joined 26 other U.S. lawmakers in writing a letter to the State Department and President Trump demanding more steps be taken to free Mohammed.

“If this were any other country, you would see a greater effort. But for whatever reason, the Trump administration doesn’t want to push the Netanyahu administration to do what it needs to do,” Van Hollen told CNN.

“American citizens are being severely abused, being beaten, being deprived of adequate food and nutrition, and I don’t hear much from the U.S. government. I don’t hear anything from the secretary of state. I mean, Donald Trump himself. I mean, who says he’s an ‘America First’ president?”

Mohammed is being held in Ofer prison in the West Bank without charge. It also houses adult detainees, including some convicted of the most serious terrorism crimes, including murder.

Muhammad’s case became relatively high-profile because he was a U.S. citizen.

However, according to the Israel Prison Service, there are approximately 350 Palestinian child security detainees in Israeli prisons.

Many have never been charged, and human rights groups as well as the United Nations say some suffered abuse and torture.

“We should demand justice,” Van Hollen said.

When I left Zahar Ibrahim’s holiday home in Mazra Shaqiya, he looked tired and alone. The houses are sparse. Just a set of dumbbells to pass his time.

All he could do was wait.