What Hamza Allan’s Family Is Not Allowed to Know
Hamza Allan: Arrested at 17, Approaching Two Years in Israeli Detention Without Charge
Hamza Abdullah Allan has spent nearly two years in Israeli detention without charge or sentence. He was 17 when occupation forces took him from his family’s home in Beit Ur al-Tahta, west of Ramallah, on May 29, 2024. He is 19 now. Next month will mark two years inside.
A released prisoner held with him recently told the family his condition is “like a corpse.” He has contracted scabies. His immune system has weakened. He cannot move normally. That is all his family knows about his health.
His lawyer has been allowed to see him once.
Hamza spent his first five months in the juvenile section of Ofer prison. When he turned 18, prison authorities reclassified him as an adult and moved him to another wing of the same facility.
The night of his arrest, the family was preparing for his sister’s wedding. She has since married and had a child. Her brother has never met the baby.
The family has pressed multiple institutions for answers. They still do not know which section holds him, what his medical condition is, or where his file stands on the indictment lists. Israeli prison authorities have blocked real lawyer access and shut families out of court proceedings, which now run by Zoom or in absentia and stretch on for two and sometimes three years. Parents are not told the hearing dates or the outcomes.
A hearing is scheduled this month. The family does not know what it will bring.
His family is waiting for his release. Before that, they are waiting for serious legal follow-up, urgent medical care, and action from Palestinian and human rights institutions on what is being done to him and to the other Palestinian children pulled out of adolescence in prison. There is no end date. There is no limit on what is done to them.
