Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Florida Teen, Still Recovering From Israeli Beating, Hopes To Return to Middle East

(Reuters) — Despite the red scars on his wrists, a souvenir from a summer vacation to see Palestinian relatives that became a nightmare, Tariq Khdeir felt lucky on Sunday as he described his apparent beating by Israeli police earlier this month.

Three cousins arrested with the U.S. teenager during clashes in east Jerusalem are still in jail, while Khdeir is free to think about the start of a new school year and make plans to go fishing back home in a quiet, gated subdivision in Florida.

The bruises on his face that drew international media attention have largely faded, although he suffers painful headaches that have not yet been fully evaluated by doctors.

“I am not scared, but I am mad,” the 15-year-old high school student told Reuters at his family’s tidy town home in Tampa, where his honor roll certificate decorates the kitchen fridge.

“I just got a taste of it,” he added. “There are still people back there going through worse than me.”

The Maryland-born teenager was caught up in the escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence after his cousin, Mohammed Abu Khudair, 16, was abducted and killed in early July.

Khdeir said he was not participating in protests before his arrest. He had jumped a fence to avoid a police raid, but said he got caught and pinned down by Israeli police officers, who tied his hands and beat him until he was unconscious.

Khdeir awoke in a hospital, confused by the Hebrew spoken, and spent four days in an Israeli jail before being released under house arrest with the help of U.S. state officials.

His mother, Suha Khdeir, 36, said her Palestinian relatives could not understand why her son’s story received so much attention, when it seemed to them such a common experience.

“I felt like I lost my freedom over there,” she said, recalling explaining with embarrassment that her son was considered important because he was a U.S. citizen.

She has not yet been able to watch the full video of the teen, identified by relatives as Khdeir, being beaten. The tape helped to stoke the outcry over his treatment, which is under investigation by Israeli authorities.

Tariq Khdeir, who said he has watched the video many times, still wants to return to the region.

“I want to go back so bad,” he said. “I miss everybody there.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.