Updated November 8, 2025 at 7:30 AM PST
AL-MAZRAA A-SHARQIYA, Israeli-occupied West Bank — Last February, Mohammed Ibrahim — then 15 — was awoken and pulled from his bed by Israeli soldiers, who said he'd been spotted throwing stones in the occupied West Bank.
He's Palestinian-American, and his family splits their time between the Tampa area and a sprawling stone house surrounded by olive trees in this West Bank village.
"Around 3:30 in the morning, they blindfolded him, handcuffed him — they just took him," his mother, Muna Ibrahim, 46, recalls. "Since that day I didn't see my son. I didn't hear his voice."
Mohammed, a U.S. citizen, has been in Israeli prison since then, without family visits or phone calls. In March, he turned 16 behind bars, and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
He's one of more than 9,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, detained in the West Bank since the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the Gaza war that followed, according to official Palestinian figures.
On Sunday, the Florida teen has a hearing in an Israeli military court. It's his tenth court appointment, according to his father, Zaher Ibrahim, who plans to attend. All of the previous hearings have adjourned without a plea bargain or trial date.
"Their hearings here are not like America. You wait 9 hours, 8 hours, 7 hours — there's no time when his court starts," the father, 50, says. "You walk in and they just say, 'Court delayed until next month.' That's how it's been for 9 months almost."
Israel has allowed U.S. Embassy officials to visit Mohammed in prison. Zaher Ibrahim says those officials, as well as freed prisoners, told him his son is suffering from scabies — a rash caused by a skin parasite — that began on one foot and has spread all over his body, and that he's lost nearly a third of his body weight.
Members of the U.S. Congress say he may also have "signs of torture."
Why stone-throwing carries a long prison sentence under Israeli military law
Rather than the regular Israeli penal code, Mohammed's case falls under special West Bank security provisions imposed after the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Those provisions classify stone-throwing as a serious offense. It was widespread in two Palestinian intifadas. Altogether more than 1,000 Israelis were killed in those uprisings, along with many times that number of Palestinians.
Court documents reviewed by NPR show Mohammed is charged with two counts of stone-throwing. The law says it's a criminal offense to "throw an object, including a stone, or act in concert to do so." Three other Palestinian youths were arrested on the same day as Mohammed, in connection with the same alleged incident.
The law says if the target of stone-throwing is a person or property, the penalty is 10 years in prison. For a moving vehicle, it's 20 years. The latter is what Mohammed is charged with.
Under interrogation, Mohammed admitted to throwing a stone near a road, but says he didn't hit anything, and didn't try to. That's according to court documents and a video of the interrogation, which a lawyer shared with his father.
In a statement to NPR, the Israeli military refused to comment on the specifics of Mohammed's case, but said military juvenile courts in the West Bank are kept secret to "protect the privacy of minors."
One of the rationales for such long prison sentences is to incentivize plea bargains, and the vast majority of minors charged in such cases never serve 20 years, says Lea Tsemel, a renowned Israeli lawyer who has represented hundreds of Palestinians charged in Israeli courts.
Tsemel is not representing Mohammed. But she says the Kafkaesque experience his father describes in military courts, and the accounts of disease and malnutrition conveyed by U.S. consular officials, are typical in such cases.
"Even a boy — even a younger boy than this one — is considered a security prisoner [under special West Bank security provisions], and will be limited and denied of any right, including food, including family visits," Tsemel says. "Hardly they can see a lawyer here and there."
The Ibrahim family has been able to hire a lawyer for Mohammed, but prison visits are infrequent, his father says.
The Israeli military disputes that. "Defendants are represented by a lawyer of their choice, and all evidence is made available to the defense. The military courts strictly uphold due process and the rights of the defendants throughout the proceedings," it said in a statement to NPR.
What the U.S. government is doing
Last month, 27 members of Congress signed a letter to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's from Florida, like the Ibrahim family. The lawmakers called on the U.S. government to engage with Israel to secure Mohammed's "swift release," citing his "alarming weight loss, deteriorating health, and signs of torture."
On one of Rubio's recent trips to Israel, he appointed a U.S. diplomat to liaise with the Ibrahim family, and Zaher Ibrahim says he's been in touch often with that person.
"They had a couple sit-downs with the Israeli government. They said the meeting was very positive, but there's been no follow-up after that," Zaher Ibrahim says.
The U.S. State Department tells NPR it's "tracking Mr. Ibrahim's case closely and working with the government of Israel." Huckabee and embassy staff are "deeply involved," it said in an email.
Whenever Mohammed gets out, his family has somber news to deliver
Zaher Ibrahim says he hopes his son will be released at Sunday's hearing, or be able to enter a plea bargain, or at least get a trial date.
His wife Muna has placed a box of chocolates on Mohammed's bed, where he hasn't slept in nearly nine months — as a welcome home gift.
"May no mother go through what I went through," she says. "We expected he'll come out within one week, because he's a U.S. citizen, and we just keep waiting."
And she's struggling with how to tell him about what's happened, while he's been in prison: In July, Mohammed's 20-year-old cousin, Sayfollah Musallet, a fellow U.S. citizen, was killed in the West Bank. He was beaten to death by Israeli settlers. The two boys were close, Muna Ibrahim says.
Musallet was the fifth American killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023. No trial has been set in his murder case, either.
NPR producer Nuha Musleh contributed to this story from the West Bank. NPR producers Itay Stern and Alon Avital contributed from Tel Aviv.
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