Soldiers beat 88-year old Palestinian in his olive grove
B'Tselem Update - 9 May 2005
On 29 March 2004, while working in his olive grove, 88-year-old Muhammad Kashu’a, a resident of ‘Elar, heard somebody calling to him. “I turned around and saw a group of about twelve soldiers,” he told B’Tselem. One of the soldiers asked Kashu'a what he was doing there. “I told him that I was working my land, removing the weeds…. He told me that it was not olive-picking season, and again asked why I was there. I replied that it was my land and that I had come to cultivate it. He said that I was lying, and that I had come to give food to people on Israel’s wanted list. I told him that I did not know any wanted persons, that I was ninety years old, and that I don’t know anybody [who is wanted]…
“He humiliated me again, saying: ‘You old men are liars.’ I told him that I was ninety years old and have never lied to anyone, Jew or Arab… Then he asked me if I had an ID card… I gave him the ID, he looked at it and said: ‘You are ninety, but you are impudent…’ Then he punched me in the chest.
“I told him, ‘Don’t hit me, I am sick and old. I can’t withstand a beating. Why are you hitting me? Am I so threatening to you, that you have to assault me?’ I told him that I wanted to speak to the officer in charge… The soldier I spoke to and two other soldiers knocked me to the ground. They kicked me in the back and beat me.
"I asked them why they were beating an old man. The law all over the world is that it is forbidden to beat old people, women, and children. One of the soldiers told me that I was impudent and was acting as if I knew the law. Then he hit me on the back of my head with the butt of his rifle. I collapsed and lost consciousness. I regained consciousness about forty minutes later. I saw that my head was bleeding, and blood was flowing down my body. I was dizzy and in pain, mostly in my back, chest, head, and left thigh. None of the soldiers were around. Only my donkey. He was eating the weeds that I had cut.”
Kashu’a went home with his donkey. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Tulkarm, where he was treated and later discharged.
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