VIDEO: American Cousin of ‘Revenge’ Victim Speaks Out After Beating

‘They Hit Me:’ Tariq Abu Khdeir, the 15-year-old American cousin of slain Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir, suffered serious injuries in a July 3 beating. Image by Reuters

By Sigal Samuel July 6, 2014

“They hit me — and they kept hitting me,” said 15-year-old Palestinian American Tariq Abu Khdeir of Israeli police, who beat him during a protest at the home of his slain cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

Tariq Abu Khdeir spoke about his experience in a video published by Addameer after he was released from Israeli custody on Sunday afternoon. He said that he was a mere bystander and not a participant in the July 3 protest, despite various reports in the Israeli media claiming that he resisted arrest, attacked policemen and carried a slingshot or a knife.

“I was standing and watching the group of people,” he said. “They came from the side of me and grabbed me.”

He lost consciousness and woke up in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where he was held under police guard. Asked if he was treated well while in Israeli custody after the beating, he said yes.

Tariq Abu Khdeir, a high school sophomore from Tampa, Fla. who was visiting his Palestinian relatives in the Shuafat neighborhood of Jerusalem for the first time in over a decade, has not been charged with a crime. An Israeli judge released him from jail and placed him under house arrest. His lawyer said he would be restricted to a relative’s home for nine days.

Sigal Samuel is the former Opinion Editor at the Forward. When she’s not tackling race or identity politics, she’s hunting down her Indian Jewish family’s Kabbalistic secret society. Her novel THE MYSTICS OF MILE END tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a dangerous mystical obsession. Her writing has also appeared in The Daily Beast, The Rumpus, and BuzzFeed. Follow Sigal on Twitter.

A message from our CEO & publisher 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.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

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