Group of 27 Congress members call for release of Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, held in Israeli detention for eight months.<\/p>\n
A group of United States lawmakers have urged the Trump administration to secure the release<\/a> of a 16-year-old Palestinian American who has been held in Israeli detention centres for eight months.<\/p>\n In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, 27 members of the US Congress called for the release of Mohammed Ibrahim amid reports that he faces abusive conditions<\/a> in detention.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n \u201cAs we have been told repeatedly, \u2018the Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens abroad,’\u201d the letter, signed by figures such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Von Hollen, states. \u201cWe share that view and urge you to fulfil this responsibility by engaging the Israeli government directly to secure the swift release of this American boy.\u201d<\/p>\n Mohammed\u2019s detention, which has now lasted for more than eight months, has underscored the harsh conditions faced by Palestinians held in Israeli prisons with little legal recourse.<\/p>\n \u201cHis family has received updates from US embassy staff and former detainees who described his alarming weight loss, deteriorating health, and signs of torture as his court hearings continue to be routinely postponed,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n Analysts and rights advocates also say the case is demonstrative of a general apathy towards the plight of Palestinian Americans by the US government, which is quick to offer support to Israeli Americans who find themselves in harm\u2019s way but slow to respond to instances of violence<\/a> or abuse against Palestinians with US citizenship.<\/p>\n \u201cThe contrast has been made clear: The US government simply does not care about Palestinians with US citizenship who are killed or unjustly detained by Israel,\u201d Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine\/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n During his time in prison, Mohammed\u2019s 20-year-old cousin, Sayfollah Musallet, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers<\/a> in the occupied West Bank. US Ambassador Huckabee called for the Israeli government to \u201caggressively investigate\u201d the murder, but no arrests have been made thus far, and Israeli settlers who carry out violent attacks against Palestinian communities rarely face consequences.<\/p>\n Musallet\u2019s family have called for the Trump administration to launch its own independent investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cOur government is not unaware of these cases. They are themselves complicit,\u201d said Munayyer. \u201cIn many cases where Palestinian Americans have been killed, the government does nothing. This is not unique to the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n In testimony obtained by the rights group Defense for Children International \u2013 Palestine (DCIP), Mohammed said that he was beaten with rifle butts as he was being transported and has been held in a cold cell with inadequate food. DCIP states that he has lost a \u201cconsiderable amount of weight\u201d since his arrest in February.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities have alleged that Mohammed, 15 years old at the time of his initial detention, threw stones at Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. He has not had a trial and denies the charge, and the letter from US lawmakers states that \u201cno evidence has been publicly provided to support this allegation\u201d.<\/p>\n Charges of stone throwing<\/a> are widely used by Israeli authorities against Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli facilities are notorious for their mistreatment<\/a> of detainees.<\/p>\n A DCIP investigation into the detention of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank found that about 75 percent described being subjected to physical violence following their arrest and that 85.5 percent were not informed of the reason for their arrest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe abuse and imprisonment of an American teenager by any other foreign power should be met with outrage and decisive action by our government,\u201d the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement about the case.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration must be America and American citizens first, and secure the release of Mohammed Ibrahim from Israel immediately. This 16-year-old from Florida belongs at home, safe with his family \u2013 not in Israeli military prisons notorious for human rights abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Group of 27 Congress members call for release of Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, held in Israeli detention for eight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[4582,7424,839,12,1814,285,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-520586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-human-rights","9":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-palestine","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-us-canada","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115420004714938795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}