B'Tselem video - Soldiers abuse elderly shepherd

Testimony of Sharif Abu Hayah, shepherd, Feb. 2009:

"Last Wednesday [28 January], around 9:30 A.M., I was grazing my flock of twelve sheep in the area of Dhaher Jubara, about two kilometers west of our village.

Suddenly, I saw six soldiers. They must have been hiding between the boulders. They looked young and their faces were painted black. They spoke Hebrew among themselves, and I didn't understand what they were saying. They came over to me, and the sheep ran away. I tried to gather the sheep, to show the soldiers I wasn’t afraid of them.

One of them sat on my legs and others punched me in the face. I shouted, again and again, “What did I do to you? Why are you beating me?” One of the said to me, in poor Arabic, “Shut up, shut up.”

After a few minutes, they dragged me about thirty meters away. I got injured by rocks and cut by thorns as they dragged me. The cuffs got tighter and hurt a lot.


Video filmed by the Pal-Media TV agency, showing soldiers cutting the blindfold off Abu Hayah and walking him over to the waiting medical team, who were not allowed to approach him.

Then they made fun of me. They laid me down and beat me one after the other. Every time my blindfold moved a bit, one of them put it back in place. Somebody covered my mouth with a strip of cloth. He shoved some twigs, or something like that, into my mouth. I turned my face and tried to get rid of the twigs with my teeth, but he hurt me with the twigs. They continued doing this for about an hour. Then they beat me less.

From time to time, I cried out in pain from the blows and the cuffs. I said: “Please release me. My hands are numb.” Only one of them spoke. He said, “Quiet, quiet.” Somebody pressed my mouth, which was still covered with cloth. I heard people moving around, but didn’t know what was happening.

About an hour after this, I heard somebody shout in Arabic, “Get out of here, get out of here.” I thought it was somebody from the village who was trying to help me. I was still lying on my back, on rocks and thorns, and I was bound. I felt nauseous. I couldn’t feel my hands at all.

Half an hour or so later, a soldier removed the blindfold, put me in a sitting position, and cut the cuffs. It was about noon. I felt better with my hands free, but I was still terribly nauseous, as if I was about to faint. I saw about eighteen soldiers around me.

Two of them grabbed my hands to pull me up. They took me down from the mountain, toward the road. They led me about ten or twenty meters, and then three or four Palestinian paramedics came. They laid me on a stretcher and carried me about one hundred and fifty meters to the road. I later learned that passersby who had seen what the soldiers were doing to me had called for help.

Sharif 'Abd a-Rahman Dar Abu Hayah, 66, married with two wives, is a farmer and a resident of Khirbet Abu Falah in Ramallah District. His testimony was given to Iyad Hadad at the witness's house on 3 February 2009.

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