Category: Israel

The Jerusalem District Court has ordered the ‘Palestinian Authority’ to pay approximately NIS 3.34 million in damages to an Arab resident who was arbitrarily arrested, detained for five years, and subjected to brutal torture after being accused of attempting to sell private land to Jews. The victim filed the civil lawsuit against the ‘PA’ in the Israeli judicial system, and the awarded damages will be collected directly via tax clearance withholding mechanisms—analogous to the compensation framework established for victims of terror.

The ruling was handed down by Judge Haya Zandberg following a claim filed by a resident of As-Samu through attorney Barak Kedem, partner at the Arbus Kedem Tzur law firm. The plaintiff had sought to sell family-owned real estate to a resident of the Jewish community of Shim’a. However, the ‘Palestinian Authority’ treated the land sale to an Israeli national as a grave security felony classified under its criminal chapter on “treason.”

The plaintiff was initially abducted in February 2014 by the ‘PA’s’ Preventative Security Service. Three months later, an indictment was filed charging him with attempting to “transfer Palestinian lands to the enemy.” In 2016, he was convicted by a ‘PA’ court in Hebron and sentenced to five years of hard labor and a fine. An appeal filed with the ‘PA’ appellate court in Ramallah was dismissed, keeping him incarcerated until February 2019.

The Israeli court ruled that the arrest and entire five-year imprisonment were fundamentally unlawful. Judge Zandberg determined that an Israeli court cannot recognize the sale of land to Israelis as “treason” merely based on the buyers’ Israeli identity. The ruling revealed harrowing evidentiary testimonies detailing the systemic physical abuse the plaintiff endured inside “PA” facilities. During interrogations, he was handcuffed and shackled by his feet to an iron chair for grueling hours in stress positions, confined to subterranean solitary confinement, and bound behind his back so violently that he collapsed whenever cell doors opened, all while facing ceaseless humiliation and abuse.

The plaintiff described how “PA” interrogators battered him with clubs and heavy objects while his head was hooded. During freezing winter periods, he was left exposed outdoors while guards drenched him in ice-cold water, alongside systematic deprivation of food, sleep, and basic sanitation. In the Dahiriya detention facility, the abuse escalated in a specialized ward dubbed “Sharon’s Cell”—reserved for individuals suspected of collaborating with Israel or transacting real estate with Jews. Masked “PA” guards routinely raided the cell to beat inmates with batons, causing the plaintiff to lose consciousness on multiple occasions.

Fellow inmates corroborated the accounts, testifying they witnessed the plaintiff being beaten with batons, dragged into solitary confinement, stepped on, and chained to cell bars throughout entire nights. The plaintiff maintained that all confessions were extracted under severe torture, identifying specific interrogators who stripped and beat him; the “PA” failed to produce these officers to testify in court. A medical examination from December 2014 documented abrasions across his back, hand trauma, and chronic pain. The court concluded that the “Palestinian Authority” engaged in “genuine, severe violence” amounting to actionable civil battery. The court awarded total damages and legal fees amounting to NIS 3,340,000.

Attorney Barak Kedem, who represented the plaintiff, stated: “This verdict exposes once again the horrific reality behind the ‘Palestinian Authority’s’ persecution policy against Arabs who dare to sell land to Jews. Financial compensation cannot return the stolen years or erase the physical trauma, but the judgment delivers an unmistakable message: anyone who persecutes, imprisons, and tortures an individual over ties with Jews and Israelis will be held financially accountable. We will continue fighting so that every ‘Palestinian’ harmed by the ‘PA’s’ persecutory apparatus receives full justice and maximal compensation.”