At his family’s home in the western part of the East Al-Quds neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah, Ali sits at a ground floor window, crisscrossed with thin iron bars, looking out onto the alleyway that runs alongside the building.
On the wall outside, there’s a graffitied slogan: “No to the colonisation of Sheikh Jarrah.”
Last June, shortly after Israel had tried to expel Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Israeli settlers, leading to protests across the occupied West Bank and beyond, Ali was arrested in the neighbourhood, accused of throwing molotov cocktails.
Four days later, he was released, on the condition that he remain under house arrest for a week.
The following month, though, the Israeli police re-arrested Ali, accusing him of burning the car of a settler who took over a nearby house in Sheikh Jarrah a few years ago. It’s a charge Ali and his family vehemently deny.
Ali was once more released, but again placed under house arrest, this time for an indefinite period. And while the teenage boy is now allowed to go - accompanied by one of his parents - to school, he has to return home immediately.
Ali's lawyer, Muhammed Mahmuod, told MEE his next hearing will be at the beginning of March, where the Palestinian teenager is likely to be charged with burning the car and sentenced to 50-60 hours of community service.
The boy at the window
On a recent visit to Ali and his parents at their home, the family told Middle East Eye their lives had been turned upside down ever since last summer.
Ali said his life has now been divided into two stages: his life before being placed under house arrest and his life now. He found being confined to his house, unable to go and play with his friends in the neighbourhood, almost unbearable.
The Palestinian teenager described the window he sits beside day and night as “life” because it is the only way of seeing the sun, of breathing fresh air, and of talking to friends and neighbours, who come by to keep him company.
“I’ve been under house arrest for seven months now,” said Ali. “The most difficult months were the first three. Now I have got used to the isolation and the quiet, and I no longer have any passion for continuing my education.”
When asked whether he would prefer being in prison, he answered: “Of course. At least in prison, you know the doors are locked and that you can’t open them. At home, the door is open, but I can’t leave, and that’s the worst thing about it.
Despite being allowed by the Israeli authorities to return to school - within a strict set of parameters - Ali’s brain still feels scattered. The only thing he can think about when he’s there is that he will soon return to his prison.
These aren’t the only ghosts haunting Ali. Memories of the physical and mental violence he was subjected to when he was arrested are never far away. He is perpetually afraid of repeating the experience.
“I dream of living a normal life like all the other children in the world,” Ali said. “I want to play in my neighbourhood like I used to before I was arrested.”
Even before his house arrest, though, Ali’s childhood was one coloured by the threat - constant and common to all Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah - of being forcibly expelled from their home.
Ali’s father, Rateb, told MEE that the restrictions faced by the neighbourhood’s residents have risen dramatically ever since the popular uprising that broke out in Jerusalem last May, during Ramadan.
The neighbourhood residents no longer know peace, constantly unsettled and assailed by the sound of house raids and night arrests.
'At least in prison, you know the doors are locked and that you can’t open them. At home, the door is open, but I can’t leave'
, Ali Qanibi, Palestinian teenager under house arrest noted.
“Three years ago, another radical settler came to live in the outpost near our home,” said Rateb.
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