Tag: Child Arrest - Page 11 - International Solidarity Movement

Child arrests continue in Hebron

20th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

UPDATE: Child arrests in Hebron continue today as a 15 year old Palestinian boy, Az Dweik, was arrested in the morning. He was allegedly carrying a knife around the Ibrahimi mosque and taken to the Kiryat Arba police station. The Israeli authorities regularly falsely accuse children and adults in Hebron of carrying weapons as a pretext to arrest or detain them (including tragically in the case of Mohammed Salayme who was killed in 2012). 5 eyewitnesses say they saw Az`s face and wrists covered in blood whilst in custody of the soldiers. He is currently being detained at Ofer prison near Ramallah. In the afternoon Muhammad Almayele, 9 years old, was thrown to the ground near Shuhada street by three soldiers before being held in an an army base for one hour. A soldier told us that “The reason we scare them is so that they don’t come here again.”

Muhammad Almayele , 9 , being arrested by soldiers

By Team Khalil

Ahmed Ibn Bilal Abu Rumeileh, a 12-year-old boy from Hebron, was today arrested in the Old City and detained for over an hour before being released. Ahmed was riding his bike through Bab Al-Baladia when six Israeli soldiers stopped him and arrested him, seemingly completely at random. Ahmed was blindfolded and taken to Beit Romano army base on Shuhada Street, where he was detained for around 45 minutes.

He was then driven in a military jeep to checkpoint 56 where he was eventually released into the custody of the Palestinian police, who registered Ahmed’s details and completed some paperwork before taking him home to his family. Upon questioning by international activists, Israeli soldiers claimed that Ahmed had been arrested due to throwing stones at the Israeli military in the morning, however Ahmed denies this. The Israeli occupation forces regularly accuse children and young men of stone-throwing and use this as an excuse for arrests, which often happen at random.

Ahmed’s arrest comes as part of a series of increasing arrests and detentions of minors in the Old City of Hebron in recent months. “Occupied Childhoods”, a report on child-arrests compiled by the Hebron Christian Peacemaker Team is available here.

In March 2013, UNICEF released a damning report in which it harshly critized the “ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system [which] appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized”. You can read this here.

You can also see recent testimonies from Palestinian children imprisoned by the Israeli military.

Arrest and abuse of ill 16-year old in Urif

21st April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Urif, Occupied Palestine

By Team Nablus

An innocent 16-year-old boy was abused and arrested on Tuesday April 16^th in Urif, despite his grandfather and uncle rushing to show documents that he is seeking medical attention for a possible cancer diagnosis. He was wrongfully accused of stone-throwing as he was leaving his uncle’s home.

Twelve soldiers had arrived in the village at around noon and were forcefully entering houses and shooting rubber-coated steel bullets down two main streets in Urif. They entered five different houses and in the fifth house, randomly attempted to take a boy in his last year of high school. His family protested and the soldiers moved on.

Stones were thrown in protest at the Israeli jeep invading the village, and the 16-year-old boy, who had been visiting his uncle and whose illness causes him to walk slowly, was taken in retribution for the stone-throwers. The boy’s hands and legs were bound, he was blindfolded and soldiers ignored his uncle and grandfather hurriedly showing medical documents about his diagnosis.

Stone-throwing resumed in protest as the jeep drove away with the ill 16-year-old. The boy reported that for every stone thrown at the jeep, he was kicked by the Israeli soldiers who were yelling at him in Hebrew. He was then taken to the Huwwara military compound, where again his uncle and grandfather followed with medical documents, trying to inform the Israeli military that there were serious concerns for the boy’s health.

The boy nonetheless spent the night in the compound and the next day was driven four hours to Salem prison, north of Jenin in the West Bank. He stated that he was put in a room full of arrested children, all between the ages of 12 and 17. He was released at around 6 pm and returned to his family in Urif.

Urif is a village in the Nablus governorate that regularly faces attacks from the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar, widely considered to be one of the most radical. While solidarity activists were visiting after the arrest, settlers could be seen at the top of the mountain and were said to be disturbing a local school. In addition, a tree planting event held on Saturday, April 13 was met by six Israeli jeeps and farmers were harassed during the action.

Furthermore, in the past ten years, 7000 Palestinian minors between the ages of 12-17 have been arrested by Israeli military forces according to a February 2013 UNICEF report. The same report says that Israeli detention of children regularly violates the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child and the UN Convention Against Torture. Among these violations are that children are almost never informed of their rights, are held in isolation for days, and banned from seeing their families as required under the Geneva Conventions. Another report from April 2012 by Defense for Children International states that 75% of 12-17-year-old Palestinian detainees by Israel suffered from mistreatment during arrest, interrogation and detention, based on 311 testimonials between 2008 and 2012.

Twelve-year-old arrested and blindfolded in Hebron

20th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

By Team Khalil

You can also see recent testimonies from Palestinian children imprisoned by the Israeli military.

VIDEO: 13 year old boy arrested in Hebron

13th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

13 year old boy is arrested by an Israeli soldier

A thirteen year old boy was arrested from his home in the Old City of Hebron, blindfolded and detained inside several small checkpoint boxes as well as the military base on Hebron’s Shuhada Street. International activists who attempted to document the incident were physically stopped and threatened by soldiers and settlers.

The boy was taken from his home and transported to Checkpoint 56, a small metal box on the border between the Israeli and Palestinian controlled areas of the city. He was blindfolded and shut inside the checkpoint for around 20 minutes. After this, he was removed by soldiers and walked down Shuhada Street, still blindfolded, and put inside another small checkpoint box.

After 15 minutes he was removed from this checkpoint and walked to an Israeli army base. International activists who attempted to follow to document the situation were stopped by soldiers who called them “Nazi pigs”, pushed them and refused to accept their passports as identification. After several minutes of the soldier harassing activists a group of around fifteen settlers arrived, several carrying automatic weapons. They pushed and threatened the international activists – see video below.

A man is blindfolded and led down Shuhada street by a soldier — Blindfolded man led down Shuhada street by soldier

During this time, the boy was taken to the Israeli military base on Shuhada Street, at which point activists could hear several soldiers shouting loudly, seemingly at the boy. After around another 15 minutes, the boy was taken by jeep back to Checkpoint 56, where he was released to the Palestinian side of Hebron into the custody of the Palestinian police. He was accused by the Israeli military of stone throwing, a charge they regularly use against children and young men, many of whom are arrested at random.

Earlier in the day, a woman was detained at a checkpoint in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. When asked why the woman was detained the soldier told international activists that “she was suspected of carrying a knife”. Despite this accusation, she was not searched for knives andwas was released after ten minutes.

Another man was detained in the area of Shuhada Street before being blindfolded and led down the street by an Israeli soldier. The blindfolded man said that he did not know why he was being arrested, whereas soldiers claimed that he had entered the part of Shuhada Street to which the Israeli authorities deny access for Palestinians. Soldiers told international activists that he had been released but this remains unconfirmed. Another Palestinian man working with a Latvian journalist was also detained on Shuhada Street during the day, held at a checkpoint for around 15 minutes and then released.

The arrest of a 13 year old boy on the 14th April follows a disturbing series of arrests and detentions of children as young as seven in the Old City of Hebron in recent months – “Occupied Childhoods”, a report on child-arrests compiled by the Hebron Christian Peacemaker Team is available here.

Palestinian Children’s Day

5th April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine Children’s Days around the world are intended to honour, protect and celebrate childhood. Palestinian Children’s Day, commemorated on the 5th of April each year, is no celebration – rather it is a day highlighting the horrific treatment of Palestinian children by the occupying Israeli authorities. In 2013, Children’s Day falls in a period in which arrests and detention of children by the Israeli military has become increasingly common. Defence for Children International- Palestine put the number of children currently detained under the Israeli occupation at 236. In the West Bank city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the rise in child arrests has been particularly evident – two weeks before Children’s Day, 30 children were attacked and detained by Israeli soldiers on their way to school, eyewitnesses stated that they were seemingly grabbed at random from in front of their school (see video below.)

Children, who are detained regularly in Al Khalil, generally have their hands bound and are confined in dark, closed spaces such as checkpoint boxes, along with soldiers who deny access to human rights observers and in some cases the families of the children. There are regular reports of beatings, threats and torture in attempts to force children to admit to crimes.

In checkpoints in Al Khalil, there are blurred pictures of children’s faces, allegedly from demonstrations, printed and stuck to the walls for soldiers to attempt to identify children as they walk past on their way to school. A recent UNICEF investigation into children in Israeli military detention describes the whole process that often occurs in arrests and sentencing of children, criticising Israel’s failings in safeguarding children’s rights under such legal policies and principles as the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We call for an end to Occupation, so that Palestinian Children’s Day can be a celebration of childhood the rights of children, rather than a day to fight against the injustices committed by the Israeli system against the youth of Palestine.

Detained child being taken to army jeep in Hebron.