IMAGES

PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ARRESTS

SOURCE: AGENCIES

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COMMON COMPLAINTS

& AREAS OF CONCERN

STATISTICS FROM THE TESTIMONIES

OF 311 ARRESTED CHILDREN

DCI REPORT

JANUARY 2008 - JANUARY 2012

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INTERROGATION

Your blindfold is finally removed, and you are sitting in an interrogation room. An Israeli officer threatens to beat and sexually assault you.

 

You aren’t allowed to go to the bathroom. You can’t eat or drink water. You aren’t allowed to sleep.

 

The officer in charge of the investigation tells you that you can meet privately with a lawyer. But you don’t have a lawyer’s number with you, so you have no one to call.

 

Within eight hours of your arrival at the police station, an officer calls your parents to tell them where you are; the officer doesn’t give your family information about why you’re held, or what you’re suspected of doing.

 

You’re interrogated for three days, for at least eight hours a day. The whole time, you don’t have a lawyer.

 

Finally, you sign a form admitting to throwing stones. The form is written in Hebrew, a language you neither speak nor read.

 

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ISRAEL SAYS...

“Almost all defendants will argue one way or another that their story was coerced, that they were deprived of sleep, that they were beaten. Occasionally, as in any system, there is abuse. It’s not something we’re willing to accept or condone.”

SENIOR ISRAELI MILITARY OFFICIAL,

AS TOLD TO AL JAZEERA IN 2013

(on condition of anonymity)

FACT

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TRIAL

Four days after your detention begins, you enter Ofer military court in leg chains and shackles.

 

You sit on a blue, plastic chair in the defendants’ booth, leaning your arm against the wooden railing. A judge from the juvenile military court, which was created in 2009, is hearing your case.

 

The entire hearing is conducted in Hebrew. An Israeli soldier haphazardly translates the proceedings into Arabic.

 

This is the first time since your arrest that you see your lawyer. Your mother and father are also sitting in the back of the courtroom. You can’t touch or speak to them directly, but you mouth a few words to reassure them that you’re okay.

 

The Israeli military judge denies your lawyer’s request for bail, and you are remanded for the duration of your trial.

 

Finally, after several court appearances and weeks in detention, you plead guilty to the charge of stone-throwing. The main evidence against you is your own confession, which you signed during the interrogation.

 

The judge sentences you to six months at Ofer military prison. This is the average prison sentence handed out to Palestinian minors for throwing stones. You have already been in jail for a month, so you have five months left to serve.

 

You are also fined NIS 5,000 (about $1,400).

 

SENTENCED FOR

STONE-THROWING

PRISON SENTENCES OF PALESTINIAN MINORS CONVICTED OF STONE-THROWING, 2005-2010

AGE

GROUPS

12 - 13

14 - 15

16 - 17

FIGURES BY IDF SPOKESPERSON

BTSELEM.ORG

(Select age group for data)

ISRAEL SAYS...

The Israeli army said that there were more than 2,400 rock-throwing incidents, injuring 116 Israelis, in 2013.

 

The year before, the army said more than 4,370 rocks were thrown. “Rock-throwing may seem harmless, but rocks can kill.

 

If we ignore rock-throwing, we potentially encourage even more severe hate crimes and higher-scale terror attacks.”

DETENTION

You serve out your sentence at Ofer military prison.

 

You enter a cell in the juvenile detention wing at Ofer, which can hold 120 children. If those spots are filled to capacity, children can then be moved to adult wings.

 

Your cell is 25sqr m, and is shared with nine other prisoners. You get to exercise several hours per day, and get three basic meals per day.

 

You only have the clothes that you were wearing the night of your arrest. It’s February and your cell is freezing at night. You only have a thin blanket to keep you warm.

 

Formal education is not offered at Ofer, so you can’t continue your studies while behind bars.

 

Israel Prison Service regulations entitle Palestinian children to family visits once every two weeks. The application process for a visit, however, is strenuous and is coordinated through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

 

After waiting several weeks, your mother secures a one-day permit to visit you in prison. You see her for 45 minutes, behind reinforced glass, and you don’t have any physical contact with her.

 

This will be the only time you see a family member while you’re in jail. Meanwhile, you can’t use a telephone to contact your family from inside the prison.

 

THE PRISONS

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ISRAEL SAYS...

“When they do hunger strikes, I can assure you, they have plenty of food in their rooms to eat if they want...

 

but when they do stage hunger strikes, they are put in solitary confinement and can lose their privileges like television and family visits.”

YAAKOV SHALOM

OFER PRISON WARDEN

(as told to Xinhua News Agency)

RELEASE

You are finally released from prison. Your father is there to welcome you, waiting in Beitunia on the West Bank side of the Ofer prison checkpoint. You share a taxi back home.

 

Having missed six months of school, you’re behind on the material and fail your final exams. You’re told you have to repeat the 10th grade, and feel that dropping out to work might be a better option.

 

At home, your character has changed. You are more easily angered and aggressive than before. You have trouble concentrating, have frequent anxiety attacks, and don’t sleep through the night.

 

Your parents have become over-protective, and you get into arguments with them regularly.

 

You don’t leave your house often because you’re afraid of being re-arrested.

 

RELATED

The arrested development of Palestinian child ex-detainees

ARTICLE ON DCI-PALESTINE

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READ

“The Committee expresses its deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police, and about [Israel's] failure to end these practices in spite of repeated concerns expressed by treaty bodies, special procedures mandate holders and United Nations agencies in this respect.”

UN COMMITTEE FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, JULY 2013 REPORT (PDF)

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