Special Forces of the Israeli Army attacked the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp at approximately 03:30 this morning.
Ahmad Matahen, a night guard and technician student at the theatre was awoken by heavy blocks of stone being hurled at the theatre by soldiers and several windows were shattered. As he opened the door he found masked and heavily armed Israeli soldiers around the theatre.
Ahmed says that the army threw heavy blocks of stone at the theatre, and “they told me to open the door to the theatre. They told me to raise my hands and forced me to take my pants down. I thought my time had come, that they would kill me. My brother who was with me was handcuffed.“
The location manager of The Freedom Theatre, Adnan Naghnaghiye was arrested and taken away to an unknown location together with Bilal Saadi, a member of the board of The Freedom Theatre. When the acting general manager of the theatre Jacob Gough from the UK and co-founder of the theatre Jonatan Stanczak from Sweden arrived to the scene they were forced at gunpoint to squat next to a family with four small children surrounded by approximately 50 heavily armed Israeli soldiers.
Stancak says: “Whenever we tried to tell them that they are attacking a cultural venue and arresting members of the theatre we were told to shut up and they threatened to kick us, I tried to contact the civil administration of the army to clarify the matter but the person in charge hung up on me.“
See the results of the IDF’s attack here:
For more information please contact:
Jacob Gough at +972 (0)59 534 83 91
Jonatan Stanczak at +972 (0)54 391 57 08
Email:
Jonatan Stanczak: [email protected]
Jacob Gough: [email protected]