WASHINGTON D.C.
The Palestinian-American teenager allegedly beaten by Israeli police has spoken about his treatment and that of Palestinians at the hands of the security forces.
Police are said to have beaten 15-year-old Tariq Abu Khdeir during a demonstration commemorating the killing of his cousin Mohammed last month. The assault on Tariq was caught on video.
Photographs taken shortly after the beating show him with a swollen and bloodied face, barely recognizable from photos taken before the assault.
"What I went through was terrible. I couldn't bear through it," said Tariq Abu Khdeir in an exclusive interview with The Anadolu Agency. "When they took me to jail, I couldn't even speak, but at that point I wanted to know why they would do that -- why are they doing that to Palestinians?"
He added: "Where is the humanity?"
His mother Suha said that when she saw her son she was dismayed at the face in front of her, but was relieved that he was still alive.
"This whole thing was attempted murder for me. To see my son that way -- it was just an attempt to murder him," she said. "They beat him like this because they figured nobody was going to know."
The family's lawyer Hassan Shibly said they were exploring legal action to hold those responsible for Tariq’s treatment to ensure that "nobody else faces that kind of brutal treatment."
Both Tariq and his mother said that his status as an American citizen helped focus the world’s attention on his treatment and the brutal killing of his cousin Mohammed.
"People wouldn't know about my cousin Mohammed when he was murdered and burned to death," said Tariq. "Because I got beaten and I am a Palestinian-American, now they know about my cousin and about my family."
Mohammed was abducted from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat on July 2 by suspected right-wing Israeli extremists and taken to a forest outside of Jerusalem where his body was discovered. A preliminary autopsy report showed that he had been burned alive.
His murder, and the earlier kidnap and killing of three Israeli teenagers, led to an escalation in tension between Israel and Palestinians that culminated in the Israeli attacks on Gaza on July 7, resulting in nearly 1,900 deaths.
www.aa.com.tr/en
