Damascus Gate, occupied East Jerusalem – Samer and Omar* woke up early Friday morning, hoping to make it to midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Located just 15 minutes from their home in the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in occupied East Jerusalem, the two young friends are among tens of thousands of Palestinians in the city who attend Friday prayers at the mosque – one of the holiest in Islam.
But when the two men arrived at the Damascus Gate – the main entrance used by Palestinians to access the Old City – they were arrested by Israeli forces.
“Where are you from?” » asked the police officer of Samer and Omar, aged 22 and 28 respectively.
“Issawiya,” they replied.
“Go back to Issawiya and pray there,” the officer told them – a response several Palestinian men said they received as they tried to enter that Friday. While Israeli forces had imposed a strict closure on the Old City since October 7, they have slightly eased restrictions over the past two Fridays, allowing more people to enter.
The two men, upset, turned away and went to get something to drink at a kiosk opposite the Israeli forces checkpoint. Shortly after, Israeli officers approached them and told them to leave the area – the most central area for Palestinians in the city – without giving any explanation.
“They started pushing us and then beating my friend with the baton,” Samer told Tel Aviv Tribune after the incident. “We tried to say ‘don’t touch us’.”
Omar swore at the police, before they chased the two men for a distance of around 500 meters (1,640 feet) and beat them with batons.
As the police ran after the two men, the Tel Aviv Tribune journalist – who was present at the scene – heard one of the Israeli police officers say: “Break their legs so they don’t come back. »
Omar, 28, suffered more violent blows than his friend. A strip of skin on his leg appeared to have been burned; he was in pain and was unable to walk.
“They don’t want us here. They want us to leave this country and forget our homeland,” said Samer, still exhausted from the beatings.
“Being a man in Jerusalem is no life,” he said. “Just existing as a Palestinian man in Jerusalem – that bothers them. »
Yet the young men say they have no choice but to stay strong.
“At the end of the day, this is a military occupation. We will never leave here, no matter what they do,” Samer said before the two hopped on a bus to return home.
“Blows, provocative searches, insults”
Since October 7, life for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in Jerusalem for 57 years has become much more difficult than it already was.
That day, Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and capturing more than 200 others. Israel responded with a brutal military campaign, first from the air and then on the ground, killing more than 29,000 people – mostly women and children – in Gaza, less than 50 miles from Jerusalem, over the past four months. . Thousands more are buried under rubble and presumed dead.
Shortly after the Hamas attack, Israeli forces were deployed by the thousands in Jerusalem’s Old City and dozens of neighborhoods surrounding it. They imposed closures and strict restrictions on movement, in addition to further isolating Jerusalem by canceling all military permits for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to enter the city.
Young Palestinians have particularly borne the brunt of increasing violence and harassment by Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem.
Abu Mohammad*, who runs a shop and lives in the Old City, said that after October 7 – especially during the first days and weeks – Israeli forces imposed a strict curfew after 5 p.m.
“No one was allowed to stay on the street after 5 p.m., even though we live in the old town. If we did, they would attack us with beatings, provocative searches and insults,” the 30-year-old told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Describing the current situation and how the violence of Israeli forces is unfolding, Abu Mohammad said: “Every time a man wants to enter the Old City, he is searched.
“A group of soldiers are going to search this man. While they are searching you, they hit you with their elbows, with their knees, to get you to say something.
“If you say something, you find them all on you, hitting you on the head and all over your body. All of a sudden you need a hospital,” says Abu Mohammad.
He noted that Israeli officers “do not differentiate between older and younger men.”
“I’ve seen them push old men. They don’t care,” he said. “There is no Palestinian man here who has not been beaten,” the father of three continued.
“They went crazy after October 7”
Israeli forces’ attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem have not only targeted residents and passers-by. They also targeted journalists trying to do their jobs.
Mustafa Kharouf, a 36-year-old local resident and photojournalist for Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, was beaten by Israeli paramilitary officers while reporting on December 15.
Along with a group of journalists, Kharouf was stationed in the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Joz, close to the Old City. Due to the Israeli ban on Palestinians entering the Old City and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, residents gather to pray in the streets of Wadi Joz on Fridays as an alternative. On many Fridays, Israeli forces fired live ammunition and large quantities of tear gas at worshipers.
As Kharouf and his colleagues left after the prayers ended, they were stopped by a group of police officers who tried to prevent them from moving to another nearby area to continue their reporting.
“We were standing and talking with the officer in charge when one of the soldiers suddenly attacked me. He started shouting, “Get out of here.”
“I said, ‘Why are you beating me?’ ‘Calm down’, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ The soldiers on the side, not knowing what was happening, saw him beating me and then decided to join the attack,” Kharouf continued. “I got angry and said, ‘We’ll meet at the police investigation department,’ which meant I was going to press charges against him.”
“They kept beating me – most of the blows were on my head, from the neck down. I said, “Shame on you,” to the soldier, before he raised his gun at me and loaded the magazine.
“I started shouting, ‘If I’ve done something wrong, then stop me!’ Why are you beating me! » Then they arrested me. They choked me and pushed me to the ground. While I was on the ground, the same soldier came back and started beating me again. They continued to beat me while handcuffing my hands. I could no longer protect my head,” he said.
Kharouf was lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, with his hands handcuffed behind his back, with cuts to his head and eyes. In video capturing the assault, one officer can be seen holding Kharouf on the ground while another kicked him in the head one after the other.
Shortly after, when he refused medical treatment, the soldiers decided to remove the handcuffs and let him go. He received three stitches to the back of his head and was treated after his release.
For Kharouf, the violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem – particularly in the Old City – is arbitrary and abusive.
“The feeling of being beaten is one thing, but the feeling of degradation is a completely different (thing),” he said. “This type of beating does not mean that they want to harm you or that you have done something wrong, but rather that they want to humiliate you.
“You feel helpless, weak while they hit and kick you. The feeling is indescribable.
After October 7, he said, Israeli forces “went crazy.”
He decided not to attempt to enter the old city or its surroundings. “I haven’t been outside the limits of the Old City for a month and a half. If you want to go to the Old City today, you have to put aside your dignity and self-esteem.
*The names of those interviewed have been changed at their request for fear of reprisals.