Khaled Al-Zeer narrates the details of arresting him and assaulting his family
The Magistrate court decided to release Khaled Al-Zeer last Thursday without any conditions for the lack of evidence regarding the charges against him (intentionally colliding with a settler’s car). The Israeli forces arrested Khaled last Tuesday after raiding his home at 4 a.m. and assaulted him and his family members. Khaled told Wadi Hilweh Information Center what happened and said: “the Special Forces along with Intelligence forces raided the family house on Tuesday early morning hours and surrounded it from all sides. They broke the main front door and when my father stepped outside to ask about the reason of surrounding the house, they assaulted and brutally beat him. Moments later, they assaulted my two brothers and my mother and then broke into the house and randomly searched and destroyed it; they also assaulted the children who were in a state of extreme fear.” Al-Zeer added: “a group of Special Forces handcuffed me and then severely beat me during the arrest and while being in the police car especially on my head. I lost consciousness and threw up due to the brutal beating I was exposed to. I also asked for treatment but they refused.” He pointed out that he was handcuffed from 4 a.m. until midnight and was transferred in between the police car, the investigation center, the court and waiting rooms. He was then taken to Al-Maskobyeh where he told the doctor who was on duty about his injury and the pain in his head but he didn’t care. Al-Zeer explained that the police accused him of intentionally colliding with a settler’s car but he refused the charges. He explained that the police confiscated his car last Sunday and didn’t tell him the reason, and then found out that they took the car to check it but the results were negative. Al-Zeer is suffering from the continuous harassment of the occupation authorities which arrested him several times and demolished his house in which he lived in with his family. He now lives in a cave built on his land in order to prevent his land from being confiscated in favour of the settlement projects, and the Nature and Parks Authority prevented him from doing any renovation works and the Jerusalem municipality issued an order to demolish a room that he recently built from bricks and tin plates. Al-Zeer said: “the occupation authorities are continuously harassing us in order to displace us from our houses and the city.” He added: “the occupation police adopted a settler’s claim and arrested me and assaulted my family including the elderly and sick members of the family, but what did they do to the killer of Martyr Samer Sarhan and who ran over the children in Silwan?.”
