Ahed Tamimi’s Interrogation Video Reveals Israeli Horrendous Tactics Against Minor

Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old Palestinian girl was sentenced to eight months in prison. | Photo: Twitter / Jewish Voice for Peace

Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old Palestinian girl was sentenced to eight months in prison. | Photo: Twitter / Jewish Voice for Peace

Ahed who is seen unruffled during most of the interrogation is horrified when the interrogator speaks of arresting her family and friends. 

The Daily Beast has obtained a nearly 2-hour-long interrogation video of the jailed Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi from Dec. 26, in which two male Israeli interrogators are seen bearing down on the minor with intimidation tactics, such as threats against her family, even resorting to objectifying comments, to coax her to answer questions.

“You have eyes like an angel,” one of the interrogators said to the 17-year-old, to which she responded with a cold stare and silence. She is seen keeping a calm, nonchalant demeanor when exposed to a series of routine questions,” the U.S. news website said in an exculsive report.

According to the Ahed’s support team, the Dec. 26 interrogation was third in line after she was arrested the same month for slapping an Israeli soldier after a rubber-coated steel bullet fired by an Israeli soldier hit her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi. A video of the altercation went viral which made Ahed an international icon of Palestinian resistance against occupation.

Tamimi was charged with aggravated assault, obstructing the work of soldiers, and incitement, among other charges on Jan. 2. She was arrested on Dec. 19 after a video of her slapping two Israeli soldiers outside her home in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, in mid-December went viral.

The interrogation video, the Daily Beast notes, seems to be from the viewpoint of a camera attached atop a computer, in the corner of a police office and shows Ahed being led into the room and seated at a desk. The authorities offer her water and a sandwich but she refuses.

The video oscillates between the two interrogators trying different approaches, techniques to make Ahed answer to them. One of the interrogators tries to relate to her as he mentions that Ahed was just like his sister who spends all his money on clothes, the other cop seeing Ahed being unperturbed, is seen threatening her.

“Seeing his colleague failing to relate, the second interrogator tries direct intimidation. “I’m an interrogator from Israel,” he says authoritatively. “We walk in line with the law… In all the areas the law is Israeli, the law of the military. And you have to listen to the law, you and all the family,” the Daily Beast reported.

Ahed who is seen unruffled during most part of the interrogation is horrified when the interrogator speaks of arresting her family and friends.

“Your mom, this is the voice of your mom! Whose voice is that?” the interrogator demanded, at this point, Ahed is seen distressed but keeps her lips sealed. He then threatens her with jail time. She continues to remains silent.

“I don’t want to bring those children here,” the interrogator tells the Palestinian activist in English. “I pray that you take the easy way. You don’t want me to speak with those children, right?” he said, referring to Ahed’s friends and family.

“Think about it, OK?” he coaxes. “I don’t need you to speak, we know. They will suffer this place.”

In February, Israel detained 10 of Ahed’s relatives, along with her teen brother who was shot in the face. In 1993, Ahed’s father, Bassem Tamimi was shaken so severely by an Israeli interrogator that he went into a coma in an event documented by Human Rights Watch at the time.

In the first two months of 2018, Israeli forces have arrested 1,319 Palestinians, including 274 minors, 23 women, and four journalists, making the total number of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails 6,500, as of Feb. 28, 2018, per a March report compiled by several Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups.