On the morning of October 13, Zaher Ibrahim desperately tried to find his son among the dozens of newly freed Palestinians streaming from Red Cross buses in the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia.

Zaher’s son, Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American, was swept up by Israeli forces during a dawn raid at their home in the village of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya in February. The Israeli military charged Mohammed with throwing a rock and striking a car driven by an Israeli settler, an accusation he and his family deny. While Israel has not publicly provided evidence, Mohammed has spent the last eight months in Israeli prisons awaiting a trial that has been repeatedly postponed. Mohammed has been barred from speaking with his family, who have continued to push for his release. And after learning that he suffered a scabies infection and severe weight loss, Mohammed’s family has begun to fear for his life.

The U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, which freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians from detention, appeared to be the breakthrough Zaher and his wife Mona Ibrahim had so desperately awaited.

On the morning of the releases, Zaher rushed to Beituna and carefully watched the buses empty. Mohammed wasn’t a part of the caravan. Zaher then got word that some of those released were being taken to local hospitals for treatment. He hurried from hospital to hospital. Back at home, Mona prepared to celebrate Mohammed’s return by cooking maqluba — a pot of rice, vegetables, and meat served upside down — her son’s favorite dish.

Hours later, Zaher returned home alone.

“I just waited and waited and waited,” Zaher recalled, “and still waiting.”

The most common charge among children is throwing rocks, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Mohammed Ibrahim is among an alarming number of children overlooked by the ceasefire agreement. More than 300 Palestinian children remain in Israeli prisons, according to Defense for Children International–Palestine. Nearly half are being held without charges — the highest number since 2008, when DCIP began tracking cases. The rest of the children are serving sentences or, like Mohammed, are still awaiting trial. The most common charge among children is throwing rocks, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. This tally doesn’t include the unknown number of children held inside Israeli military facilities.

While Mohammed’s detention is a single case among many, his story offers a window into Israel’s deadly and unlawful carceral system. Through The Intercept’s interviews with family members and advocates for imprisoned Palestinians, review of medical records, and legal testimony and footage of the Israeli police’s interrogation of Mohammed in February, it became clear that Mohammed’s case fits within the Israeli government’s long-standing patterns of detention, abuse, and deprivation of basic human rights.

Mohammed’s case has received widespread attention over the past week, largely due to his status as an American citizen, but also because of a tireless campaign led by his family. In the U.S., Zaher’s cousin, Zeyad Kadur, has met privately with lawmakers in Congress, alongside parents whose American children were killed by Israeli forces or settlers, calling on the U.S. government to secure Mohammed’s release. In September, the State Department assigned a diplomat to handle Mohammed’s case. And on Wednesday, after two days lobbying in D.C. — Kadur’s second visit to the Capitol in as many months — 27 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter calling on U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to exert pressure to free Mohammed.

The campaign arrived as details of Mohammed’s prison conditions came to focus this week with the release of a firsthand testimony relayed to a lawyer with DCIP. In the account, Mohammed tells of living in a cell with four bunk beds, shared with at least eight children, forcing some to sleep on the floor. The only items in each cell are thin mattresses, blankets, and a single copy of the Quran, he said.

He and other children are served two meals a day: three small pieces of bread and a spoonful of labneh for breakfast; a small cup of rice and a single sausage with pieces of bread for lunch, he said in the document. Every two to three days, they receive a spoonful of jam and occasionally a small cucumber or tomato. The prison does not serve dinner.

Mohammed also recounted the night of his detention. He said Israeli soldiers burst into his home, blindfolded him, and zip-tied his hands, before hauling him into a military vehicle where he lay flat on its metal surface as soldiers beat him with the butts of their rifles. At the Ofer military base, the beating continued, he recalled. Mohammed then told of being taken to a police station where a masked interrogator threatened to instruct soldiers to beat him again if he didn’t comply. “Out of sheer fear, I ultimately confessed,” he said in the testimony.

“It breaks my heart to say that his case is not exceptional.”

Such details have begun to spark the outrage of many in Washington and across the world. Advocates for imprisoned Palestinians who have been following the case were disturbed by the alleged abuse Mohammed has suffered at the hands of the Israeli military. But perhaps what has troubled advocates most about Mohammed’s case is how familiar it sounds.

“It breaks my heart to say that his case is not exceptional,” said Miranda Cleland, an advocate with DCIP. “His case is so similar to what we’ve heard from so many Palestinian children and families, not just in the last two years, but in the last 30 years — this is exactly how the Israeli military targets Palestinian children and their families.”

Since Israel began its military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, indefinite detentions have been a tool used to control Palestinians. Palestinians are subject to military law and military courts, where prosecutors and judges are Israeli soldiers and Palestinians lack due process rights. United Nations experts last July called for the dismantling of Israel’s military court system, saying that it violates humanitarian international law and cannot be improved. They criticized the role of military judges providing “legal and judicial cover for acts of torture, cruel and degrading treatment against Palestinian detainees” by Israeli soldiers and police. The experts specifically mentioned their concern that such practices extend to children.

The Israeli military declined to comment for this story, referring to the Israeli Prison Service. The IPS and Israeli police did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

The Israeli military court system prosecutes as many as 500 children each year, with a conviction rate of around 99 percent, according to DCIP. The most common charge against Palestinian children in the military court system, like Mohammed’s case, is throwing a rock. Nearly all of the convictions result from a........

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