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Brutalizing Palestinian Children - by Stephen Lendman
As an isolated incident, it would be appalling and criminal. As a regular occurrence, it's state-sponsored terrorism against defenseless children, subjected to barbarism by Israeli soldiers committing crimes against humanity to crush their will for wanting to live free on their own land - what Westerners take for granted; what Palestinians since 1948 haven't had, and since 1967, under military occupation denying their very humanity.
Nora Barrows-Friedman does heroic reporting for Pacifica Radio's KPFA Flashpoints Radio and as an activist/teacher/journalist in Occupied Palestine during regular visits. On March 8 on the Electronic Intifada, she wrote about Amir al-Mohteseb, a 10-year old Hebron child, arrested, detained, and savagely beaten after his 12-year old brother Hasan endured similar treatment a week earlier.
On March 7 at 2AM, "Israeli soldiers (broke) into (his) house, snatch(ed) Amir from his bed, threatened his parents with death by gunfire if they" interfered, took him down the stairwell, and brutally beat him causing internal abdomen bleeding, requiring overnight hospitalization. "In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half."
Before the incident, he told Barrows-Friedman he was playing in the street on his way with Hasan to see their aunt when:
"Two....soldiers stopped us and handcuffed us, (took) us to two separate jeeps, (took) me to the settlement and put me in a corner, (put) a dog next to me," refused to let him use the bathroom, threatened to hold him forever, wouldn't let him call his mother, blindfolded him, and held him until his father managed to get him late at night.
He was terrified, held for 10 hours, traumatized by the incident, and unable to sleep, "worried sick about his brother in jail and extremely afraid that the soldiers would come back" and do it again, which they did, and do repeatedly to hundreds of Palestinian youths, their siblings, parents and friends, guilty of being Palestinian on land Israel wants to make historic Palestine an ethnically pure Jewish state.
On March 9, Haaretz writer Nir Hassan headlined, "Israel using strong arm tactics against young Palestinian stone-throwers," saying several Silwan, East Jerusalem youths "were arrested and taken from their home(s) in handcuffs in the middle of the night over the past few months, as part of a police crackdown on suspected stone-throwers....," not militants, gunmen, murderers, or bomb throwers threatening civil society - alleged stone-throwers punishable by imprisonment up to 20 years under Military Order 378 if convicted.
Children 12 - 15 have been targeted, arrested, detained, and savagely beaten following complaints by Jewish settlers who usually take the law into their own hands using weapons they're allowed to carry.
Parents intervening are threatened, often beaten, and at times detained and charged with interference. Some arrested children "had their remands extended by the court, and others were released on certain conditions. All the suspects against whom (authorities have dubious evidence) will be brought to trial" before military or Magistrate Court judges where due process and judicial fairness are denied, so their fate is pre-determined.
On February 17, B'Tselem highlighted the same story about Silwan, East Jerusalem youths seized from their beds in the middle of the night, handcuffed, taken to the Russian Compound police station and interrogated "on suspicion of stone throwing." According to some, children aged 12 - 15 were threatened, detained, and beaten.
Muhammad Dweik, aged 12 said:
"Around 4:30 - 5:00 in the morning, I woke up from the sound of knocking at the door. Shabak (ISA) agents asked my father for (his son's) ID card. My father told them that I don't have" one. They refused his father's request to let him bring him to the police station later that morning.
"They tied my hands behind my back and took me. The policemen put me into a Border Police jeep. A friend of mine was also inside it. A policeman who sat next to me kept kicking me in the leg all the way."
Lu'ai a-Rajabi, aged 14, was also arrested and interrogated, denied he threw stones at settler houses, and was punched in the nose with his hands and legs cuffed. He was then hit in the face and head, ordered to confess, and, while he was sitting, three interrogators beat and kicked him "all over my body, and (swore) at me and Allah."
They told him to sign a Hebrew document saying he wasn't beaten. He refused and was beaten again. The next day, he was brought before a Magistrates Court judge who extended his detention for a week.
