Israel-Palestine is one of the world’s longest standing conflicts, with a number of different players hungry for power and wars that have left deep scars on the local populace. The worst hit by these endless wars and instabilities are children who are not just left orphaned and uncared for, but also directly face the brunt of war by losing fundamental human rights and surviving at the mercy of the opposite party.
Since the late 1980s, when the conflict escalated, more than 1500 children have died in the conflict. Children around the ages of 11-17 have been arrested by the Israeli Police forces in huge numbers, most of them boys. Children with ages as low as 12 have been tried in the adult military courts since 2009, in heavily rigged and unfair systems that are deemed to instigate terror and fear among the people. They are convicted on the grounds of conducting terrorist activities which are trumped up. Stone pelting and vandalism is considered to be one of the most common acts, leading to gruesome interrogations and long sentences.
Over the last two weeks, the conflict in Gaza has escalated. Three days ago, the Israeli government announced a new ‘Law and Order Operation’ which aims to crackdown on civil disobedience in the occupied regions of West Bank and Palestine. Within a few days, over 200 Palestinians and Arabs have been arrested by the Israeli police and detained in prisons.
Although the numbers aren’t clear yet, videos of young children aged 12 and 15 getting arrested have surfaced online, sparking outrage and cries for help. In places close to the mosque where tensions escalated first in the recent heightened conflict, members of the Israeli military dressed up as commoners and blended in with the local crowd, only to arrest children and later assault them. They were a part of Israeli police’s Musta’ribeen unit – an undercover unit made up of Israelis disguised as Palestinians. Its agents usually attend Palestinian protests with the intention of arresting demonstrators. A 15 year old Palestinian boy Saadi tells Al Jazeera his experience on the night of 20th May, where he got arrested by the Israeli Police:
I asked them to stop, but with every attempt to respond I was met with a beating.
This incident is not isolated. Over the past two decades, many of these children (usually boys) have been arrested on trumped up charges and sketchy laws. They are detained for days and weeks, without any contact to their family or assignment of a lawyer. The public lawyers, if assigned, are unable to devote their time and energy to these children, partly because of the number of cases they have to work on and due to the lack of will.
Confessions are forced and interrogations are severe. They are tried in a system that stands against the very existence of their people leading to biased and unfair judgements. Few children are informed of their rights to legal counsel, or their right to avoid self-incrimination. Confessions from children are extracted by a mixture of sleep-deprivation, threats –of death threats against them or their families, sexual assault and solitary confinement- and physical violence. Confessions to be signed are often written in Hebrew, which most Palestinian children do not know. Once the interrogation is finished, the children, in leg chains, shackles and prison uniforms, are taken before a military court where their confessions, extorted under duress, form the primary evidence for the prosecution. Sentences are served in three prisons, two of which are inside Israel, and critics argue that their incarceration in Israel violates the article 76 of the Geneva Convention, which states that "protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.”
Besides the most obvious effects of living in a region stepped in conflict, such arrests and experiences scar children for life. They are left mentally affected and feared for the rest of their life.
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