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Twilight Zone / Mute testimony
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Gideon Levy

His mouth is sewn shut and wires are clamped on his jaw. He can't open his mouth, can't speak and can't eat anything but liquids, which are injected into his mouth via syringe or straw. He will remain in this unfortunate situation for at least six weeks. Israel Defense Forces soldiers shut Salman Zararana's mouth - literally.

A Bedouin shepherd and the son of refugees, from the remote village of Al-Ramadin, at the southernmost extremity of the West Bank, Zararana is a 43-year-old father of six. This week he sat on the floor of his hut wearing a heavy jacket despite the heat, a red keffiyeh covering his face and his shame, his eyes flashing with anguish and pain. One powerful blow with a rifle butt, delivered by a soldier who vented his anger on him for no apparent reason, broke Zararana's jaw in three places. First there was surgery, and now prolonged wiring.

He is pale, thin and weak, barely able to stand on his feet. But Zararana is not suffering alone: On at least two other occasions, on consecutive days, the same soldiers apparently used the same place - near an opening in the separation fence - to batter two more groups of wretched Palestinians, who only wanted to do a few days of work in Israel. The soldiers are also suspected of stealing the Palestinians' money and cigarettes, forcing them to crawl on the ground and walk barefoot through a field of thorns, and of trying to organizing a "race" among them, in which the winner would be given water to drink in the heat of the day.
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This week, Jessica Montell, executive director of B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, sent an urgent letter to the military advocate general, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit, calling on him to intervene immediately to stop what she described as the persistent abuse of Palestinians by soldiers next to the village of Al-Ramadin, near the settlement of Eshkolot, not far from Be'er Sheva.

Al-Ramadin looks like the end of the world. It is a village of about 4,000 Bedouin from refugee families who were expelled or fled from the Negev in 1948. There is no way to talk to Zararana, of course, but we received his testimony by means of hand gestures, and with the help of his brother as well as of B'Tselem fieldworker Musa Abu Hashhash, who accompanied us.

Zararana has been unemployed for the past two years, during which he has not had a valid Israeli work permit. He sometimes takes sheep out for grazing. On Wednesday, September 23, during the "10 days of penitence" between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he left his house at midday, heading for the home of friends near the separation fence, to buy feed for the sheep. For some reason, the fence, which was built in this area about four years ago, has an opening through which hundreds of workers from the territories sneak into Israel every day. They are met on the other side by Israeli Bedouin, who drive them to jobs in the Negev. This "taxi service" costs each worker NIS 150.

When he got to his friends' home, Zararana noticed an IDF jeep chasing a Dodge Magnum pickup carrying workers who tried to sneak into Israel. On the hills above were another four or five pickups full of workers, waiting for the jeep to leave.

Unable to catch the Dodge, the soldiers stopped and called Zararana over. He told them he had come to visit friends living near the fence. The soldiers took his ID card and his mobile phone, ordered him to wait - and left. He sat down on a boulder and waited. About 40 minutes later, they returned. Three of them walked over to Zararana, who was certain they were going to beat him to vent their frustration at not catching the pickup. One of the soldiers handed him his ID card and phone very slowly, but when Zararana reached out to take them, one of the soldiers struck him viciously with his rifle butt on the right cheek.

Zararana heard something crack in his mouth; from the force of the blow he lost his balance and felt dizzy, but did not fall. All he wanted to do was get away so the soldiers would not hit him again. When he was about 300 yards from the soldiers, he waved at one of the pickups waiting above, signaling the driver to come rescue him. The pain was unbearable.

The pickup took him to the entrance of the village, where his brother was already waiting in the neighbors' car. They drove quickly to Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron, from where he was transferred to the city's Alia Hospital, but there were no specialists in either institution capable of dealing with Zararana's injury. After four days without proper treatment, the family had him transferred to the government hospital in Ramallah, where he was operated on and his jaw was wired shut. The physicians found fractures in three places.

Six days later, on September 29, the day after Yom Kippur and all its soul-searchings, soldiers detained a group of 13 workers who had tried to sneak into Israel. According to the testimonies taken by Abu Hashhash, they forced the Palestinians to lie on the ground, and stepped on and kicked them. They kicked the stomach of one worker - Nadir Horibat, who is about 20 - so hard that he had to be evacuated by ambulance. He spent two days in a Hebron hospital.

But there was more. The soldiers came back again the next day, last Wednesday, September 30, in the afternoon. This time they caught a group of nine workers from nearby towns, and for six hours, meted out the most serious abuse of all: They ordered the men to crawl on the ground, pushing them to move faster. Then they made them take off their shoes and walk barefoot through a field of thorns, according to the testimonies taken by B'Tselem.

Despite his age, a worker nammed Mohammed Sadak Kneibi, 56, also underwent the hazing and abuse. His son-in-law, Iyad Abu Marhiya, a resident of Hebron, aged about 30, tried to get up to urinate during the crawling session, but was told by a soldier: "You didn't get permission to piss," and ordered him to keep crawling. Abu Marhiya told B'Tselem that in the end he had to relieve himself in his trousers. All the men were on their way to work in Ashkelon.

That stage of the abuse went on for about two hours. Then the soldiers ordered the workers to sit on the ground with their backs to them. The workers later related that while they were sitting, the soldiers stole cigarettes and money they had brought for the days they would spend in Israel. The soldiers apparently did not touch the Palestinian cigarettes, but according to the testimonies, they made off with about 30 packs of L&Ms and NIS 700 in cash.

When the workers asked for water, after hours in the heat, the soldiers told them to run a race in which the winner would get water. The soldiers offered the same deal when the workers asked if they could smoke: The winner would get a cigarette. The workers said they refused to suffer such humiliation. One of the soldiers also ordered the eldest of the workers to take off his jacket, so that the soldier could use it to dress up as a Palestinian and catch more workers.

At one point, Kneibi says he told the soldiers: "Either kill us or let us go." He was the only one who had the guts to protest - and he was also the first to be released. The others, he says, were freed after yet another race. By 9 P.M. they all had been allowed to go; when the soldiers left they snuck into Ashkelon after eating supper in the Israeli Bedouin town of Lakiya. The next day, however, the group was caught by the Ashkelon police and, after being interrogated, were expelled via the Tarkumiya checkpoint.

The IDF Spokesman stated in response: "Following a complaint by the B'Tselem organization regarding the event of September 23, including the details of the complainant, a Military Police investigation of the issue will be commenced, and the complainant will be requested to give detailed testimony. The other two events are not known to the IDF and no specific complaints have been received regarding them ... The behaviors described in the complaints, if they indeed occurred, are against IDF regulations, directives and values as given to IDF soldiers in Judea and Samaria, and we denounce them."
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