The papers reported that two rockets fired from Gaza on Dec. 18 had landed in the Israeli border town of Sderot and in a community south of the coastal city of Ashkelon, “causing damage but no casualties.” The next item read that Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said while touring the Gaza border region the following day that the government had known there would be a cost for US President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “Such things appear to have a price that’s worth paying,” the minister said, not forgetting to praise the “optimism and high spirits” of area residents.

The same day, Liberman declared his “full backing” for the soldiers who displayed restraint when a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, slapped them recently in what some quarters claim was an effort to provoke a response. The soldiers proved that the Israel Defense Forces are “an ethical army guided by moral values,” he said.

Tamimi is one of 45,000 Palestinian minors arrested by Israel during its 50-year occupation of the West Bank. Some 64% of them reported being beaten during their detention, according to data issued this week by Military Court Watch, an organization that monitors the detention of children by the Israeli military. The Israeli troops who subsequently arrested Tamimi were high school students themselves until a few months ago. Many of their fellows who detained Palestinian minors during their military service bear emotional scars caused by their experiences as soldiers. A few bare their souls to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization opposed to the occupation, or join the group in an effort to ease their distress. Others carry with them the trauma, often unaware of it or its consequences.

Let us start with the price paid by the Israeli children living in the constant shadow of rockets and mortar shells from Gaza — for example, Ido Gabbay from Sderot. Gabbay spends most of his time in the family home’s secure room and almost never leaves his house. During one of his anxiety attacks, triggered by the thunder of overflying fighter jets, he used a pen to pierce his skin until he bled.