Name: M.R.
Date of incident: 4 January 2012
Age: 15
Location: Qalqiliya, occupied West Bank
Nature of incident: Attempted recruitment as informant

On 4 January 2012, a 15-year-old boy from ‘Azzun in occupied West Bank is arrested from his house at 2:00 am by Israeli soldiers. He is offered a job as an informant after being interrogated and held in solitary confinement.
 
On 4 January 2012, at around 2:00 am, M.R. and his family were woken up by Israeli soldiers. “Soldiers started throwing stones at our house,” M.R. recalls. “I immediately woke up everyone in the house.” One of the soldiers asked M.R. where he was hiding a weapon. When he denied having one the soldier said to M.R.: “Then we’ll search the house and if we find a gun, I’ll beat the hell out of you and smash you, so it’s better that you tell me where you hid it.”

As the soldiers searched the house, M.R reports that he was kept outside in the cold weather for about an hour with his hands tied behind his back using a single plastic tie.
 
M.R was blindfolded and transferred to the settlement of Zufin near Qalqiliya. There, “I was approached by an officer who asked me ‘what do you think about working for us and be an informant for the security services?’ I told him to go to hell and never speak to me because I will never be a spy,” M.R. reports. He was then transferred to Huwwara interrogation and detention centre. He reports being verbally abused during transfer. “The soldiers kept insulting us using obscene and unacceptable words that I do not want to repeat,” M.R. says.
 
From Huwwara M.R was transferred to Al Jalame interrogation and detention centre inside Israel, with his hands tied and his feet shackled. When he arrived at Al Jalame he had been tied, blindfolded and with no food for about 23 hours. M.R was placed in solitary confinement until interrogation the following day. M.R. reports that he was unable to sleep that night. “I could not sleep that night because the cell was scary. It was very small and had grey walls, and the lights were on the entire time,” he says.

M.R. was interrogated multiple times. On 16 January 2012, he was transferred to Megiddo prison inside Israel, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

19 January 2012