Israel Arresting Children To Prevent Third Intifada
Israel is arresting and mistreating Palestinian children to prevent a third intifada, Jillian Kestler-D'amours reports.
SILWAN, East Jerusalem — Most are ripped from their beds in the middle of the night. Others are taken while playing in the street, or leaving school. Many are blindfolded and shackled on their way to interrogation, which lasts for several hours at a time, all without a lawyer or family member present. Many are beaten, verbally abused, and pressured to sign confessions for crimes they didn’t commit.
The experience of Israeli arrest, interrogation and detention causes severe psychological damage, and leaves lasting scars on Palestinian detainees, their families and communities. It is especially traumatic, however, for the over 7,500 Palestinian children under the age of 18 that have been arrested by the Israeli authorities since 2000.
“Ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized,” UNICEF found in a recent report, detailing Israel’s practice of arresting Palestinian children.
While the phenomenon of arresting Palestinian children is widespread, the frequency and brutality with which these arrests are carried out are often influenced by the political situation on the ground. Certain geographic areas are also targeted, including Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem that count a large Israeli settler presence, where Israeli policies are most severe, or where Palestinian resistance is strongest.
