On the evening of Tuesday October 23, a 15 year old boy, Hamze Shweke, was detained by the Israeli army at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint. The soldiers approached the boy sitting at one of the checkpoints and told him that he had five seconds to leave. The night before Hamze had been assaulted by the same soldiers. Hamze told the soldiers that he wouldn’t leave. When Hamze remained seated the soldiers slapped his face, handcuffed him with plastic wires and took him up the hill, out of sight of the community and observers.
Outside the base, one of the soldiers forcefully dug his fingers into his shoulders and neck and slapped him whilst handcuffed. Throughout this ordeal, for over an hour, Hamze was not allowed to sit. Hamze was eventually released.
Whilst in custody, the captain in charge told Hamzes brother that they “knew” that International HRWs had paid Hamze to cause trouble and that the workers were recieving monetary gains from their films following bogus allegations from settlers.
This event follows repeated complaints of incidents involving soldiers assaulting the neighborhood youths as witnessed by Human Rights Workers.