An Israeli border policeman detains a Palestinian protester during a weekly demonstration against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Friday, Feb. 13, 2015.

The head of the Palestinian Authority prisoners’ affairs committee, Issa Qarage, met with former detainee Noor Muhammad Hilmi Hamamrah, age 15, while visiting prisoners’ families in the northern West Bank village of Qusin in the Nablus district.

Hamamrah explained to Qarage that while he was detained in Israel’s Etzion detention center, interrogators forced his mouth open and began to pry his braces off of his teeth. The interrogator threatened to rip out all of Hamamrah’s teeth if he did not confess to throwing stones at Israeli cars.

This is not the first or last of the countless accounts of disturbing and violent treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centers. A UN report from 2013 says that the abuse of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons is “widespread, systematic and institutionalized.” The report also said that there was evidence of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment” in prisons.

Information gathered from Ma’an: http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=765587 and the UN report on Palestinian prisoners: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45291#.VWL…9Viko

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