JERUSALEM — A Palestinian-American teenager is expected to appear in court in Israel later this week after nine months in detention without being charged.

Mohammed Ibrahim, who is 16 and lives in Florida, was arrested in February while on holiday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank for allegedly throwing stones at Jewish settlers, something he denies.

Last month, 27 Democratic US Senators and House members sent a letter to the US State Department, urging the Trump administration to do more to pressure Israel to release him.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Mohammed had committed a "a serious potentially deadly crime" and that the court was proceeding under due process.

The teenager's family disagrees.

"You can ask anybody you know, he's a real sweet boy, into his sports and his PlayStation and school," his father, Zahar Ibrahim, tells me before wiping a tear from his eye.

Mohammed was arrested in a raid on his family's holiday home in the Palestinian village of al-Mazraa al-Sharqiya in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers. He was 15 years old at the time.

Ibrahim has not seen or spoken to Mohammed since February.

"He's just a regular fun kid that loves and respects anybody," Ibrahim tells me from the holiday home.

Unable to speak to his son for nine months, Ibrahim has only heard accounts of his detention through court documents and says his son was forced to confess.

According to the court documents, he says, Mohammed woke up surrounded by Israeli soldiers. "They tied him up and blindfolded him, and they threw him on the floor of the jeep and took him to wherever they took him."

Ibrahim, a father of four who runs an ice cream business in Florida, says his son only confessed to throwing stones because the soldiers beat him.

The Israeli prime minister's office has not responded to a request for comment on whether Mohammed is being held without charge or the allegation that he was beaten while in detention. — BBC