NIEUWS NEDERLANDS PALESTINA KOMITEE

Het Amerikaanse congreslid Brian Baird heeft in een bewogen toespraak voor het Congres opgeroepen tot actie om Israel te laten stoppen met schieten op stenengooiende kinderen.

In het Britse parlement werd gedebatteerd over Palestijnse kindgevangenen.

Bron URUKNET

British parliament debates Palestinian children prisoners [ 72811 ] -
By Renee Bowyer

MEMO , December 12, 2010

I visited the family of a twelve year old boy arrested on a Sunday morning. They lived in a small room on the outskirts of Balata refugee camp bordering the city of Nablus. The mother of Salim spoke to me first reminding me how the last time I had visited her, her son Salim had been there. Of course I remembered; he'd greatly enjoyed trying out his few English words with me and had very excitedly told me how he and his mother had been to Ramallah the week before. It was Sunday evening and as I sat with Um Salim she recounted to me how she had woken in the night as Balata camp was invaded. She listened to the sound of tanks and jeeps, of sound bombs detonating at random. But then Um Salim told me how the night-terror became her terror when her front door was pushed in and soldiers were everywhere. They were calling for Salim and Um Salim began to sob as she explained to me how a mother's worst nightmare began.

Salim was twelve years old but in many ways he was older than his years. He had witnessed an uncle shot and killed by invading Israeli forces and he had not seen his father, a prisoner, for eight years. But this night Salim became the child again. When his name was shouted out Salim in terror rushed behind his mother and fell on the ground. He held the skirt of his mother and cried up to her 'Mama; save me'. Um Salim told me how her son was ripped out of her arms as he cried for her to protect him. She was pushed to the ground and Salim was dragged from the house.

Six months later I visited Um Salim again. She had not seen Salim since the night he had been dragged from her arms. She still had no idea why he was taken, for how long he would be held or even when there would be a court hearing for him. She said she had learnt to live without him but would never learn to forget the words he had cried out to her when the soldiers had pushed in their door: 'Mama; save me'. Um Salim looked at me and said 'I couldn't protect him. I couldn't protect my son.'

Last week in Britain; a far cry from the poverty-stricken streets of Balata refugee camp and the occupied territories of the West Bank; Sandra Osborne, MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, secured a debate on the detention of Palestinian children by Israel in the British Parliament. Having worked with Addameer in the West Bank, (a Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association mentioned by Ms Osborne in her presentation) I can appreciate in full the horrifying account Ms Osborne gave of the plight of Palestinian children prisoners. Details of Hebrew confessions signed by children under physical or emotional torture, of solitary confinement, of beatings and threats and months without seeing or hearing from family are all realities that thousands of Palestinian children are facing now. One can only imagine the horror of families whose children have been taken and are being subject to these violations. While working with Addameer I spoke to mother after mother whose child had been imprisoned and every one of them spoke of the constant fear gripping their hearts knowing their child was unprotected in a hostile and violent place and how they knew that no law was governing the treatment of their child.

The taking of Palestinian children by Israeli forces and the terrorizing of them seems to be a calculated policy of Israel in their attempt to destroy the very fabric of Palestinian life. The Occupation of Palestine is much more than a military exercise and as constantly cited by Israeli officials 'a necessary step to insure Israeli security'. Every aspect of the occupation, from the invasions and assassinations to the humiliating abuses of the soldiers standing at checkpoints is geared towards making Palestinian life unbearable. The strategically placed settlements and the free-reign given to settlers to attack, kill and steal land from the Palestinians, the invasions of villages and the constant curfews imposed on them, the house searches and indiscriminate shooting, the verbal inanities shouted at women and children by soldiers in roaming army jeeps are all focused on grinding down the will to survive and resist that the Palestinian people show.

I cannot recall how many times I asked the question 'why are you doing this?' When I was living in the Occupied Territories; watching some ridiculous flying checkpoint being set up on some small mountain path and three or four teenage soldiers smoking and forcing old women to empty their shopping bags on to the dusty road. 'Why are you doing this?' as I watched a tank roaming through a village and stopping in front of the village high school for boys and some sun-glassed soldier throwing a sound bomb over the wall. Acts that have no meaning to them except to terrorize and humiliate and make the lives of the Palestinian people harder than they already are.

'It's the Wild West' an anonymous soldier states in Breaking the Silence; 'serving in the West Bank is like being in the Wild West'.

And this is because the Israeli government has a goal beyond taking land; it seems increasingly obvious that the real agenda of the Israeli government is to 'cleanse' the land of Palestinians and the first step to do this is to make the Palestinian people stop resisting; not just with arms but in every other way. There is too much life still being lived under occupation; there is too much will to survive this occupation and siege. There are still festivals and marriages being celebrated in ruined houses alongside the burying of the dead; there are still lessons being taught to children in schools that have been bombed to rubble; there is still music in Palestine. And this is what Israel fears.

There are plenty of times when the reality of life under occupation and siege yields a sense of despair and helplessness among the people of Palestine, but it doesn't stay; only in the cases of the mothers of child prisoners does it stay. There was a look of desperation and despondency on the face of Um Salim when she told me how Salim had cried to her to protect him that I had not seen before, and when I visited her months later and she had still not heard from her son that look was still there; etched now on her face.

By stealing the children of Palestine and trapping them inside a prison where they have no contact with family, Israel is attempting to systematically destroy the future of Palestine. They are breeding despondency inside Palestine that even invasions and killings did not produce. If this is not Israel's aim, why else would they go to such lengths to violate every law set in place to protect children from this kind of soul-destroying treatment?
Ms Osborne last week made a plea to the British government to intervene because she was horrified by what she had witnessed in a military court hearing of Palestinian children. (And surely what she witnessed was a toned down version of what normally happens). The plea Ms Osborne made was supported by extensive detail and factual information and clearly exposed the policy of Israel in respect to Palestinian child prisoners and how it seems that the policy of Israel encourages these violations.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Alistair Burt, responded to Ms Osborne in the sort of way that western governments are responding to Israeli violations every time they come to prominence: by stating that Israel may have gone too far in some respects but that their security issues necessitate certain actions and that Israel continues to have the full support of these governments. Alistair Burt agreed to raise the issue with Israel and to write to the members of Parliament who had attended the debate. And that is all.

A letter in a month or two explaining that the issue has been raised with Israel?

While Um Salim waits to hear what prison her twelve year old son has been dragged too, while another mother and another are woken in the night to the sound of their child's name being shouted by soldiers who batter down their doors, and while children shiver alone in prison cells, are forced to sign confessions of guilt in Hebrew and are beaten and shackled; our Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will raise the issue with Israel.

On the 21st November this year two Israeli soldiers were given suspended sentences and demoted for using a Palestinian child as a human shield during their attacks on Gaza on 2008/2009. They scarred the nine year old child for life when they forced him to search for booby traps in the ruins of his town and they were given two months probation and were not sent to prison. At the same time countless Palestinian children are serving sentences in Israeli prisons for throwing stones at tanks.

It is time that our secretaries of state do more than write letters about this. If they as representatives of our governments do not help protect these children than who will?

Ook in Israel bestaat kritiek op de arrestatie van Palestijnse minderjarigen, met name van de mensenrechtenorganisatie B'Tselem:

Israel group blasts arrests of Palestinian minorsBy BEN HUBBARD The Associated Press
Published: 11:34 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010
Bron: Statesman

Heavily armed Israeli police dragged the Dana brothers from their home before dawn, tossed them in armored jeeps and hauled them in for interrogation, the Palestinian boys and their father told The Associated Press.

While Israel has long relied on night raids like this to nab Palestinian militants who seek to kill Israelis, the Dana brothers didn't fit the bill. Their alleged crime: throwing stones. Their ages: 14 and 16.

In a report released Monday, the Israeli rights group B'Tselem says the youths' arrest is part of an Israeli campaign targeting Palestinian minors — one just 5 years old — for stone throwing in east Jerusalem. It says police often arrest minors from their homes in the middle of the night and interrogate them, sometimes with no parent present, in ways that violate Israeli law.

Israeli police say the arrests are not only legal but necessary to stamp out stone throwing, which often targets police or Jewish settlers. It's especially common in parts of east Jerusalem, where tensions run high between Palestinian residents and Israeli police, settlers and their security guards.

"As soon as the law is broken and as soon as people are attacked, we will respond very quickly by making arrests," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The fate of east Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel captured the area in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, a move the international community has not recognized. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

B'Tselem's report examines the cases of 81 Palestinian minors arrested between November 2009 and October 2010 in the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan, a working-class area just outside of Jerusalem's Old City.

Settler organizations that seek to expand Israeli control have targeted the area, placing about 350 settlers in heavily guarded enclaves among 16,500 Palestinians.

The report says police arrested many minors in their homes in Silwan at night, seizing some from their beds. Undercover officers nabbed others on the street. At least 30 of the 81 detained were younger than 15, the report said. Four were younger than 12 and the youngest was five.

They were detained from a few hours to a few days and interrogated, sometimes without parents present, the report said. Some said police roughed them up. The report also says some were released after paying fines as high as $1,300. Others were placed under house arrest for up to two months, allowed only to go to school accompanied by a parent.

B'Tselem said arresting and interrogating minors at night or without a parent present violates Israeli laws that protect minors.

Rosenfeld said police arrested "several hundred" people in east Jerusalem over the last year for stone throwing, though he didn't know how many minors. He said he was unaware of any interrogations without parents present, and emphasized that all are filmed as court evidence.

Police expected community leaders to teach their youth not to throw stones, which have injured many officers, including one who lost an eye, Rosenfeld said.

The turning point in Silwan was Sept. 22, when a settler security guard shot and killed an Arab resident. Arab youths burned garbage and tires and threw stones at police, who fired back with tear gas. The report says police arrested at least 32 minors in the next five weeks.

On Nov. 10, the entered the home of Mohammed Abdel-Haq to arrest his son Wadea, 9, he said. They also arrested a downstairs neighbor, Omar Abu Saoud, 7.

"They were all suited up for battle, like they were going to bring in (Osama) bin Laden," Abdel-Haq told the AP.

The boys' fathers rode with them to a police station, where an officer said he had photos of the boys throwing stones. Abdel-Haq said if it was true, he'd punish his son himself.

But at the station, he was told he could only see the photos in court and that his son would be detained for 48 hours in the meantime, he said.

Last month, 60 Israeli professionals who work with children sent an open letter to the government warning that arrests could psychologically damage minors.

"The potential effect that a tough and often violent police conduct may have on their future development and on their lives as adults may be hard and painful for them, their relatives, and the entire society," it read.

Parents worry, too.

Faraj Dana told the AP that police arrested his sons Ahmed, 14, and Jamal, 16, from their home in the middle of the night on Oct. 20. They were held four and eight days, respectively, and interrogated alone, he said. Both were released to 20 days of house arrest after his father paid a $415 bond.

Dana said his sons were innocent but that he supported stone throwing.

"If the setters come and get comfortable, they'll tell all their relatives to come," he said. "But if they are uncomfortable, perhaps it will keep them from coming."

Still, he worries about his youngest son.

"His laughter used to fill up the street," he said. "Now he's very quiet, as if he woke up and saw that there are things in life he never thought about before."

Ahmed often recalls his arrest.

"At night sometimes, I wonder if they are going to come pound on the door again," he said. "It keeps me awake."

___

December 13, 2010 02:49 AM EST

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