US teen Mohammed Ibrahim released from Israeli prison after nine months
Israeli authorities have freed Palestinian American teenager Mohammed Ibrahim after more than nine months of detention, in a case that advocates say embodies Israeli abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Mohammed’s release on Thursday came after a months-long pressure campaign from United States lawmakers and civil rights groups.
The teenager from Florida was 15 years old in February when he was arrested and taken from his family home in the town of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, near Ramallah. He turned 16 while being held in Israeli jail, where he drastically lost weight and contracted a skin infection.
“Words can’t describe the immense relief we have as a family right now, to have Mohammed in his parents’ arms,” Mohammed’s uncle Zeyad Kadur said in a statement. “We couldn’t believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe.”
Mohammed was arrested over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers, which he denied. His father, Zaher Ibrahim and other relatives told Al Jazeera earlier this year that Mohammed was blindfolded and beaten during February’s raid on his family home.
Israeli authorities did not allow him to contact his family while in prison, nor did he have any visitation rights. The only updates his loved ones were receiving were through US officials, who were granted access to Mohammed.
Throughout his detention, his family members pleaded with the administration of US President Donald Trump to push for his release — or at least ensure that he had access to adequate food and healthcare.
Israeli troops kill two Palestinians in Jenin as they try to surrender
Israeli soldiers during the deadly raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, November 27
Israeli soldiers have shot and killed two Palestinian men during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin as the pair attempted to surrender to the military, according to video footage and witness accounts from the scene.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said journalists in Jenin reported on Thursday that the two men had “pulled their shirts up, showing that they were unarmed” before the military ordered them to go back into a building that they had been holed up in.
“And then they were shot dead. They were executed,” Odeh said, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the slain men as Al-Muntasir Billah Abdullah, 26, and 37-year-old Youssef Asasa.
The Israeli army said in a statement that its troops had pursued wanted individuals who were “affiliated with a terror network” in the Jenin area and had “initiated a surrender procedure that lasted several hours”.
After the men exited the building, “fire was directed towards the suspects”, the statement said. “The incident is under review by the commanders on the ground, and will be transferred to the relevant professional bodies.”
But Odeh noted that, historically, Israeli reviews of the killings of Palestinians typically “do not end in indictments or criminal investigations”.
Describing the shootings as “heinous extrajudicial killings” and a “deliberate Israeli war crime”, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the international community “to take immediate action to halt the Israeli killing machine”.
