Al Jazeera photo.
Tel Aviv: After nine months of detention in an Israeli jail, a Palestinian American teenager, Mohammed Ibrahim, was released by the Benjamin Netanyahu-led Zionist government on Thursday, according to an Al Jazeera report.
The teen’s release comes after months-long pressure campaigns by lawmakers and civil rights groups in the US.
Israel arrested the teen from his family’s home town of al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, near Ramallah. The 16-year-old severely lost weight and contracted a skin infection in jail.
On the release of the boy, his uncle Zeyad Kadur said in a statement that words cannot describe the relief their family feels at the moment.
“We couldn’t believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe,” Al Jazeera quoted Kadur.
The accusation against Mohammed was that he threw stones at Israeli settlers, which he had denied. Mohammed was beaten and blindfolded on the day he was arrested, Al Jazeera learned from his family. Also, he was not allowed to contact his family while he was in detention, and he was denied any visitation rights. Only US officials were granted access to him, and only through them did his family receive updates on him.
Throughout the detention period, Mohammad’s family pleaded before the Donald Trump administration in the US to push for his release or at least provide him with adequate food and healthcare.
Kadur said that for the whole nine months, Mohammed’s family has been living a horrific and endless nightmare, while being fully aware that Israeli soldiers were beating him and letting him starve.
In recent weeks, the campaign for his release has strengthened after reports suggested that his health was deteriorating.