Tag: Child Arrest - Page 8 - International Solidarity Movement

Settler attack fended off by vigilant residents of Azzun

29th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Azzun, Occupied Palestine

On June 18, settlers hung up a banner in the town of Azzun, threatening to take over the town. Later that day, the town was attacked by settlers, supported by the Israeli army. Local residents successfully fended off the attack through massive mobilizations.

The town of Azzun is the home of about 10.000 Palestinians. It is located in the northern West Bank district of Qalquiliya, close to several settlements. On Tuesday 18^th of June, settlers secretly entered the town and proceeded to hang up a banner at the town entrance stating that “On Tuesday, the village will become ours.” The unconcealed threat was signed by “The Women of Samaria”. The banner was quickly removed but the threat of a violent take-over was still present, as would become evident some hours later

224335 — Banner hung up by settlers (Photo by Ma’an News Agency)

During the late afternoon of the day that the ominous banner was put up, settlers gathered outside the eastern town-entrance for what appeared to be an attempt at fulfilling the prophecy. Luckily, the day before, attentive villagers had intercepted online information that settlers were mobilizing for a lunge against the city on this date and so they were prepared.

About three months earlier, the town had been attacked by around fifty young settlers who entered the town through the eastern-most checkpoint. After this, they proceeded to enter nearby Palestinian houses, throwing stones and empty bottles while shouting that “this is our land”. In spite of being barraged with tear gas and sound bombs by the occupying military forces, which came to the assistance of the attacking settlers, the residents of Azzun managed to fend off the assault. As a result of this experience three months ago, the locals now knew how to react to what looked like a new attempt at a violent assault on the town.

As soon as settlers started gathering outside the eastern-most checkpoint of the town, residents rushed to the site, effectively blocking the entrance to the town for both settlers and the collaborating soldiers that were accompanying them. For about six hours the residents were attacked with tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets by the occupation forces. These attempts by the occupying forces to help the settlers enter the town left several wounded. In the end, the perseverance of the residents of Azzun caused the attacking settlers to retreat without having entered the town. The soldiers, however, returned the following night to continue harassing the inhabitants of the town.

These evident attempts at forcefully taking over the city are not the only abuses the residents of Azzun face every day. Because of the status of the town as a major traffic hub for the surrounding villages and towns, Azzun is routinely submitted to checkpoint shut-downs. In accordance with this, the main checkpoint of the town was completely shut down between the 15^th and the 20^th of June.

The checkpoint-shut-downs have the purpose of severely prolonging the transport time for anyone hoping to access one of the cities of the region, with the direct consequences for those in urgent need of medical attention of a kind not accessible in the immediate area.

Apart from these shut-downs, the military has a practice of arresting young boys on various arbitrary charges. While in custody, the boys are pressured into signing forms in Hebrew being informed that this is a prerequisite for being released. What the boys don’t know is that the forms are in fact made-up testimonies, denouncing other boys of taking part in illegal activities. This practice is adopted by military as a sort of divide-and-rule strategy where released boys and their families are under constant suspicion of being collaborator and informants, thereby playing residents out against each other. The local boys’ school can also confirm a correlation between the time of the year and the amount of arrested teenage boys. There seems to be a surge in the amount of arrest as soon as the exam-period gets closer meaning that a lot of these young men are prevented from taking their mandatory 12^th grade exams.

The ISM will continue to monitor the situation in the town that is also being closely followed by another group of internationals, EAPPI.

988631_10151474199257227_673337611_n — Settlers gather outside the entrance to Azzun

“We don’t care” – A shocking response from Israeli soldiers arresting children in Hebron

28th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Two brothers aged 10 and 13 were today taken by the Israeli occupation forces whilst playing outside their home in the old city of Hebron. They were forcibly taken to the military base on Shuhada Street which is closed to Palestinians, while their mother waited watching from the street above. They were held for four hours, without their family being notified of their situation and without having access to a lawyer. The Israeli authorities lied many times, claiming that the children had been released while they were still being held. Eventually the children were released without even being passed to the Palestinian authority.

Soldiers escorting children down Shuhada Street (Photo by ISM)

At around 2pm two brothers, Yousuf and Ahmed Gaha, aged 13 and 10, were taken from outside of their home by the Israeli military. According to their mother they were playing at the time. They were taken to the Israeli military base which is on Shuhada Street, which is completely closed to Palestinians, meaning that their mother could not follow – instead she had to wait on the road overlooking the base and watch from afar. Although soldiers could see her they would give her no information about her sons, despite it being illegal under international law to hold minors without access to their parents or a lawyer.

At around 5pm international observers waiting outside the military base heard shouts and cries from children, but still the Israeli military did not release them and refused to give any further information. Several times during the four hours, the Israeli District Coordination Office claimed to both the Palestinian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross that the children had already been released, when in fact they were still inside the military base. Under Israeli law, individuals should not be held by the army for more than three hours without being passed to the police, but the military today ignored these rules.

Soldiers surround children after their four hour detention (Photo by ISM)

Soldiers repeatedly claimed “we don’t care” and refused to give information to human rights observers. When the children were eventually released, it was not to the Palestinian authority, as is usually the case in the arrest of minors. Rather, the two brothers were released directly into the cemetery above Shuhada Street and allowed to go to their homes. This contradicts the soldiers’ claims that they had seen the boys throwing stones and had video footage of them, as these charges often come with a criminal sentence for Palestinian children.

As the children were released, a settler from one of the illegal settlements of Hebron – farcically holding a bunch of flowers – tried to attack international observers who had been filming the events, telling them to “go home” and calling them “Nazis”, as well as trying to physically assault them. Human rights observers have observed four child arrests just this week in Hebron, and this could easily be a small proportion of the full number. There is a worrying disregard for international law and the rights of the child in Hebron – for example 27 children were arrested at random in Hebron in March 2013.

Settler tries to attack international observer (Photo by ISM)

Witness to a child arrest in occupied Hebron

24th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Two detained children, soldier looking on (Photo by: ISM)

Since coming to the West Bank I had heard a lot about the Israeli army detaining and arresting children. Despite this, the first time I saw it myself, I was amazed. Amazed that people – young soldiers – could intimidate, harass and arrest kids. And all done with smiles on their faces.

We were called to the army base on Shuhada Street with a report of two children being detained. We walked down the street, passing checkpoints, getting held up while the soldiers ‘checked’ our passports and hassled us. When we got close to one of the illegal settlements in Hebron, we saw a mob of about ten soldiers down a side road – when we approached they disbanded. As they moved apart we saw that they had been crowded around two young children, around ten years old, who were backed up against a wall.

On our arrival a group of soldiers came over to us, laughing and joking with each other, trying to talk to us in broken English. According to them the children had been caught throwing stones in the old souq. It seems laughable to think they’d be so concerned, being covered head to toe in military gear and holding guns. The children were forced to stand apart, in the dark, in an alley full of soldiers for over an hour. We asked the soldiers if they knew where their parents were, if we could talk to them, if we could walk them back into the Palestinian controlled area of Khalil. All of our questions were met with the same answer; “No”.

We sat and waited, waving at the children, making sure they knew we were there to try and help. Attempting to talk to the soldiers was futile; “we’re waiting for further instruction from higher up”, “I love kids, we’re not doing anything wrong”, “I’m just doing my job”. All I could think was: “Imagine if your kids, or your brothers, were missing at night and you didn’t know where they were?!” – the whole thing felt disgusting and underhand. Even the way they moved away from the kids when they saw us coming – they must have known that what they were doing was wrong. That it would seem wrong to the international community if they knew about it.

The two children seemed fairly calm after a while, eventually exchanging jokes and swapping positions when the soldiers weren’t looking. We decided, amongst the five of us that were there, that two should walk back up to the main checkpoint between the Israeli and Palestinian controlled areas. This would be where the children would get taken when/if they were released. My comrade and I walked back up Shuhada Street, the soldiers laughing at us as we left. We of course got stopped for a long time at another checkpoint in between – in fact, long enough to see the soldiers escorting the two children up the road towards us. We could not follow to make sure they were okay as the soldier who had detained us was holding our passports and ‘radioing in’ to ‘confirm our identities’.

Soldiers smiling - children arrested behind them — Soldiers smiling – children arrested behind them (Photo by: ISM)

After about 15 minutes we got our passports back and got to the checkpoint to see the children being ‘posted’ back into the Palestinian controlled area and handed to the Palestinian Authority. The whole thing left me feeling sick. The smiles on the faces of the soldiers, the way they thought it was acceptable – or even normal – to hold children against their will at night, their use of intimidation and blatant abuse of power.

It may not seem like it, but these children were lucky – they were not blindfolded or handcuffed, nor were they were beaten or imprisoned. But others are. The children of the West Bank are learning first hand every day about the brutality of the Occupation. But they are also learning how to resist. I hope that their resistance will create a Palestine where children can play in the streets freely and without fear.

Setting a dangerous precedent: 16-year-old Ali Shamlawi faces 25 counts of attempted murder for alleged stone throwing

18th June 2013 | Mondoweiss, Katherine Flynn| Hares, Occupied Palestine

Three months ago today, in the early hours of March, 17 2013, Israeli soldiers appeared at 16-year- old Ali Shamlawi’s house in the West Bank village of Hares. They blindfolded him, handcuffed him and took him away. His arrest was one of a spate of arrests in March of this year which saw 19 boys, aged 16 and 17 years old, arrested for throwing stones which were alleged to have caused a traffic accident on Route 5, a large road which cuts through the West Bank to service illegal Israeli settlements.

Hares is a village of 4,000 people south of the city of Nablus in the West Bank. Illegal Israeli settlements – including Ariel, the second-largest settlement in the West Bank – have been built on agricultural land confiscated from Hares. The traffic accident in question occurred on March 14 when a car carrying a mother and her three daughters from Ariel crashed into the back of a truck on Route 5 near Hares, after the truck had braked suddenly. The youngest daughter was critically injured in the crash. The driver of the truck initially attributed the sudden breaking to a flat tire but later claimed he braked suddenly when stones hit his truck.

Locals who were at the scene of the accident moments after it occurred were interviewed by the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) and reported that they did not see any youth in the vicinity. However in the weeks since the accident, 61 witnesses from surrounding illegal settlements have come forward claiming their cars were also damaged by stones thrown by Palestinian youth from the side of the road. These settlers claim that Palestinian boys were 5-10 metres from the side of the road but these allegations have never been verified by the extensive CCTV footage in the area.

Since the initial arrests, 14 of the Palestinian boys have been released. However, five boys, including Ali Shamlawi, remain in prison three months later. Along with the other boys, Ali is being charged with 25 separate counts of attempted murder (one for each individual stone he allegedly threw) and is facing 25 years to life imprisonment.

Last Thursday on June 13th, Ali was in court again for his sixth hearing. Having applied to attend the hearing in advance, I was informed the night before that permission had not been granted because it would be a closed hearing – something all too common in Israeli military courts. Ali’s lawyers have since confirmed that at the hearing his detention was extended to July 25th in order for the defense team to be able to consider all evidence being used against him.

Along with the 61 “witnesses” mentioned above, the prosecution’s evidence consists of confessions from the boys. The lawyers and NGOs working on the case insist that these confessions were forced under extreme duress and are therefore inadmissible. 16-year-old Ali was held in solitary confinement for two weeks after his arrest and denied access to a lawyer for the first few days. He was interrogated for up to 20 hours at a time and beaten. Until last week, he was also denied visitation from his family. Ali’s lawyers submitted a complaint on May 15th about the circumstances of his interrogation and torture but are still waiting to hear back from the military police investigation.

Interviews carried out by IWPS with some of the boys already released by Israel show further mistreatment of children in custody. One of the 19 boys arrested was hospitalised after being beaten by interrogators, while another reports being kept alone in a small cell where bright lights shone continuously and being threatened with harm to him and his family. Indeed, such allegations come on the heels of a February 2013 report by UNICEF which firmly concluded that “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the [Israeli] military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised throughout the process…”

It is not just the treatment of these children during interrogation that should raise questions. Despite being only 16 years old, Ali is being tried as an adult in Israeli military court; while illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank are subject to Israeli civil law, Palestinians living in the same area are subject to strict Israeli military law. Under this law, Palestinian youth can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for throwing stones at vehicles. Twenty years in prison for throwing stones would be considered harsh in even some of the world’s strictest regimes, but this case sets an even more dangerous precedent: the Israeli courts are charging these five boys not with stone-throwing but with attempted murder.

If the sentence is passed, this case could set a legal precedent which would allow the Israeli military to try any Palestinian youth with attempted murder for incidents of stone-throwing. While the evidence against the boys is tenuous at best (and downright illegal at worst), statistics on conviction rates in Israeli military courts do not bode well for the boys. According to a 2010 internal IDFreport, the military court system used to try Palestinians has a 99.7% conviction rate (In 2010, that meant only 25 full acquittals out of 9,542 cases).These highly troubling statistics expose the discrimination inherent in the Israeli judicial system when compared with similar statistics on settler attacks on Palestinians. A 2011 UN OCHA report revealed that over 90% of monitored complaints of settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police were closed without indictment.

With conviction rates of almost 100%, allegations of torture against children, and systematic discrimination against Palestinians, it is high time that Israel is held to account for the violations of international law endemic to its military detention and judicial systems.

For now, Ali must wait until July 25th to appear in court again, not knowing whether he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. This case has until now received little media attention. But for those of us who respect due process and human rights, it is time to speak up.

Addameer, IWPS and Defence for Children International are working with Ali’s lawyers on this case.

Video: Ten-year-old boy arrested in Hebron

17th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Around 8:30pm on June 16th, a ten-year-old local Palestinian named Amed was arrested by Israeli soldiers in the market of the old city of Hebron. He was held for around an hour in the military base on Shuhada Street and interrogated. He was then taken, handcuffed, by two soldiers on foot through the street to the checkpoint between the Israeli and Palestinian controlled areas – he was then released to the Palestinian Authority police.

The alleged reason for this arrest was that the boy was throwing stones; his brother informed international observers that he had mimed throwing stones and the soldiers decided to arrest him for it. Amed was questioned by the Israeli military without a lawyer or family member present, illegal under international child protection laws.