Israeli troops are now going through Palestinians’ phones. Anything ‘forbidden’ provokes abuse
Hebron, 2024
Gideon Levy reports in Haaretz on 1 February 2025:
A new and original task has been added to the many assignments given to the forces of the occupation: military censorship. Indeed, Israel Defense Forces soldiers at checkpoints in Hebron are now effectively functioning as censors.
Three weeks ago, we recounted in these pages the story of Fatma Jabbar, a mother of seven and a volunteer for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, who was subjected to blows and humiliation by Israeli troops in Hebron because her phone contained a clip of an IDF soldier abusing a Palestinian with special needs. This week it emerged that such an abuse was not exceptional, but regular, routine conduct.
In recent months, soldiers have been checking the contents of the cellphones of Palestinians passing through the pedestrian checkpoints leading into Hebron’s H2 quarter, and subjecting many of them to maltreatment. Every text, image or video clip that displeases the soldiers immediately brings about questioning, detention and/or beatings.
According to B’Tselem’s field researcher in the city, Manal Jabari, about 70 percent of the tens of thousands of Palestinian residents of that neighborhood – which is home to fewer than 1,000 settlers and is under Israeli military control – have experienced abuse because their phones contained some sort of ostensibly forbidden content.
Perhaps the footage came from an Israeli television newscast, or there was an image of soldiers or settlers that was circulated on Palestinian social media, or there were photos of an armed Palestinian that went viral.
The story of Omar and Ayman Jabbar (no relation to Fatma), brothers aged 41 and 30, respectively, vividly illustrates the new reality. Both brothers are disabled. Ayman suffers from a degenerative muscle disease, Omar has a platinum plate in his leg in the wake of an accident. But the soldiers apparently couldn’t care less about their condition. Omar was roughed up by troops twice in the same week in early January, and required hospitalization. In any event, the troops deployed in Hebron have probably never heard of human rights, the right to privacy or freedom of expression. Certainly not the troops manning the checkpoints, who assume they have the right to do whatever they please to Palestinian residents.
We met the two brothers last week in the Hebron office of Human Rights Defenders Fund, which sits above the checkpoint at the entrance to Shuhada Street, located in the old market. Two women standing nearby related that they were on their way home and had been waiting for over half an hour to go through. The soldiers were busy with other things, of course.
Omar Jabbar, married and the father of four, teaches math at the Al-Amari primary school for boys in Hebron. Ayman manages an online clothing business. On Monday, January 6, Omar got home from school and called his brother to arrange for them to meet. Ayman informed him that he was being detained at the checkpoint in the A-Ras neighborhood. Omar rushed there – and he too was taken into custody.
Omar was ordered to put his hands behind his back, and then the soldiers started checking his WhatsApp messages. By what right? By what authority? Those are questions that aren’t asked in Hebron. They ordered him to kneel down; he tried to explain that he had a platinum plate in his leg and couldn’t really do that. “I couldn’t care less,” the soldier retorted.
The schoolteacher was held for two painful hours on the ground at the checkpoint, before being taken into an office there, where he was handcuffed and placed in the white army jeep that has become a symbol among the Palestinian population. We keep hearing about the scary white vehicle that takes people away.
Omar was taken out in an open lot and ordered to crawl on his knees. One soldier aimed a rifle at his head and threatened to shoot him. A few soldiers kicked him, others cursed him and forced him to repeat their cries, in Hebrew: “Am Yisrael chai!” (the people of Israel lives), “Netanyahu melech Yisrael!” (Netanyahu king of Israel) – and to curse Hamas. When we asked him to repeat the curses, he asked Jabari, the B’Tselem field researcher, to leave the room so she would not hear them.
At about 6:30 P.M., the soldiers dumped Omar next to the police station in Kiryat Arba, the urban settlement abutting Hebron, gave him his phone back and ordered him never to save anything on it. His brother was released with him.
r his part, Ayman relates that he left home that morning at around 9 A.M. and was detained at A-Ras. The troops took his phone and ID card. He tried to tell them that he suffered from a degenerative disease, which is quite noticeable, and showed them documentation to that effect, but to no avail. In his phone the soldiers apparently found an image of an armed Palestinian that was circulated on social media.
Blindfolded and handcuffed, Ayman was taken to an IDF post in the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba. His shirt was removed and as he was trembling from the cold, he was forced to sit on an iron bench. He remembers being pushed and falling off. After a while he was feeling unwell and told his captors: “Shoot me.” He began to lose consciousness and when he asked the soldiers to loosen the handcuffs a little, they made them even tighter. As with Omar, they forced him to chant “Am Yisrael chai” and various blessings, before being released hours later near the Kiryat Arba police station.
The Jabbar brothers had a tough time trying to recover from their ordeal. Just a week later, on January 13, around midday, Omar and his 12-year-old nephew, Yazen, arrived at the Al-Rajbi (Beit Shalom) checkpoint in the H2 neighborhood. Training their weapons at them, the troops ordered them to take off their coats drop their pants. The teacher refused, but obliged after the soldier threatened to shoot him. Again his phone was taken; again he was handcuffed. He was dragged along the ground and kicked, he relates now. A plastic bag was placed over his head, so that he could barely breathe. Yazen was meanwhile released.
Once more the frightening white jeep pulled up; once more Omar was thrust into it. He remembers being struck on the head with a two-way radio and being taken to a room where soldiers were speaking on radios; some walked by and yelled curses directed at Hamas at him, while others beat him. At around 4:30 P.M., he overheard a conversation with the Palestinian Coordination and Liaison Office, in which the soldiers were told that he was disabled. He continued to suffer abuse until a Shin Bet security service agent arrived, and showed him an image from his cellphone of a Palestinian holding a rifle.
“Do you know who he is?” the agent asked. Omar replied that the photo was taken from an Arabic news website and circulated on Palestinian social media.
He was then driven to the post at Givat Harsina, which was manned by soldiers and two settlers in civilian garb. The settlers began to beat him, but the soldiers stopped them – and went on hitting him themselves. They then took Omar to the Givat Ha’avot checkpoint in Kiryat Arba, and told him to get lost – “I’m counting to 4 and then I’ll shoot,” a soldier barked at him.
Omar did his best to flee although his hands were still bound and his leg hurt. Entering a nearby alley, he kicked at the door of a house. The occupants unshackled him and called his family to come and take him to nearby Alia Hospital. The physician on duty, Dr. Ahmad Zayn, wrote on the discharge form that Omar was suffering from bleeding in the legs and stomach as a result of his beatings.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit this week stated in response to Haaretz’s query about the two events: “As part of routine, security-check protocol, during passage through checkpoints, the forces delayed a suspect in the wake of pictures of weapons and IDF soldiers saved in his cellphone. The suspect was summoned for continued interrogation at a police station. We emphasize that at no stage did our forces use violence.”
It is important to emphasize here that we asked the spokesperson why both Jabbar brothers had been detained, but the army chose to respond only with respect to one “suspect.”
An American columnist who accompanied us on the day we visited, asked Omar what was the purpose of such conduct.
“Humiliation,” he replied. “Pressure for us to leave the city. The whole neighborhood is going through this, everyone experiences it almost every day. One day I will tell my grandchildren about it.”
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