SOME 95,000 Palestinian children have been detained in the West Bank since it was occupied by Israel in 1967, most of whom were exposed to widespread, systematic and institutionalised abuse, a West Bank-based NGO has revealed.
In a special report published on Wednesday, Military Court Watch (MCW) cited 200 testimonies of minors detained between 2013 and 2015, and accused the Israeli army of widespread, systematic and institutionalised abuse of Palestinian children arrested in the West Bank.
MCW said some of the children were taken into custody during ‘terrifying military raids’ on their homes at night, and that some 59,000 of them have been subjected to physical torture.
‘A common technique employed by the interrogators is to inform the minor that all of the other people detained at the same time have already provided a confession so denial is futile. Aggressive behaviour, threats and violence are also sometimes utilised during the interrogation, including threats to beat, rape, hold in solitary confinement, electrocute or shoot the minor,’ the report revealed.
The report also stated that 187 of the children interviewed had their hands tied during the first 24 hours of arrest and 165 complained of being blindfolded. 124 other children said they were physically abused. Only eight minors were given access to a lawyer before interrogation and the parents of only seven children were present during their interrogation, the report added.
MCW said it has submitted the report to a United Nations special rapporteur to investigate the 200 cases of torture. The report came only a day after the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon decided to exclude Israel from the list of countries that commit grave violations against children in armed conflict.
PLO Executive Committee Member Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority was extremely disappointed by Ban’s decision, stressing that Israel’s ‘belligerent military occupation in Palestine has shown through the years a total disregard for the lives and rights of our people, including children’.
‘We don’t have to remind the Secretary General of the reports made by several UN organisations on the matter, just as those made by Palestinian, Israeli and other international human rights organisations thoroughly outlining Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians, including children,’ he said.
Erekat concluded: ‘The decision of UN Secretary General is wrong, tasteless and unperceptive. The international community must cease avoiding its responsibilities in holding Israel accountable. Only justice will bring about a just and lasting peace.’
• Israeli forces last Thursday razed Palestinian-owned agricultural land in the village of Wadi Fukin to the west of Bethlehem, for the benefit of establishing a new settlement project in the area, according to a local official. Head of Wadi Fukin village council, Ahmad Sokar, informed WAFA that Israeli forces, accompanied with bulldozers, arrived in the early morning and razed 20 dunums of land located between the illegal settlements of Bitar Elit and Tzur Hadassah. The land belongs to a local resident identified as Sabri Manasra.
He said that according to Israeli media this Israeli procedure comes in the framework of establishing an industrial and commercial area between the two aforementioned settlements at the expense of the village’s land. He noted that Israel intends to take over around 200 dunums of land for the benefit of establishing the industrial zone, which would benefit settlers residing in nearby illegal settlements.
Settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights, both occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law. The settler population in the West Bank is estimated at 531,000: in late 2012 the population of the West Bank settlements was 341,400; in late 2011 there were 190,423 individuals living in Israeli neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.
B’Tselem the Israeli human rights group said: ‘The settlements have been allocated vast areas, far exceeding their built-up sections. These areas have been declared closed military zones by military orders and are off limits to Palestinians, except by special permit. In contrast, Israeli citizens, Jews from anywhere in the world and tourists may all freely enter these areas.’
According to a report by Applied Research Institute (ARIJ), ‘The consecutive Israeli governments adopted a policy to acquire much of the West Bank lands to build and expand the Israeli settlements by employing different methods; most renowned of which, “Security,” which is also, how Israel was able to restrict Palestinian towns’ development on the remaining areas.’
It said that, ‘Since 1967, Israel utilized all the laws that were once running in this part of the land; at least the ones that it can make use of to justify its occupation in an attempt to legalise the various methods it uses to carry out its systematic policy to confiscate Palestinians’ lands to make it available for the occupation Army or/ and for the Israeli settlers.’
During the time of this report on Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt), which covered the period between June 13, 2014 – April 15, 2015, ARIJ institute said that, Israel as an entity along with the Israeli settlers confiscated, destroyed, and seized for the so called “military purposes” around 415,266 dunums of Palestinian land in the West Bank.
• Israeli forces on Thursday raided and wreaked havoc in a Palestinian-owned shop used for selling construction material in the village of Zobda to the west of Jenin, according to the shop owner. The owner, Yehya Tawfiq, told WAFA that Israeli forces raided his shop, for the second consecutive time, where they disabled the surveillance cameras before they broke down the main front door and wreaked havoc in the shop in a provocative manner for no apparent reason. The owner submitted an official complaint through the Palestinian military liaison office.
He said forces target Palestinian shops located at the entrance of the village almost on a daily basis.
Israeli forces often target Palestinian properties or provide protection to settlers conducting attacks on Palestinians in an aim to force them to leave their land for the benefit of settlement expansion. According to the Palestinian Information Centre, ‘Israel routinely targets the Palestinians’ livelihood and their ability to make a living by burning their fields, destroying their olive groves, and violently seizing their farmland.’
Regarding the poor economic situation in Gaza, which deteriorated severely following Israel’s 2014 summer aggression, the centre said that: ‘The Israeli occupation forces had deliberately destroyed the Palestinian economy in Gaza Strip by targeting factories and causing heavy losses to the commercial and agricultural sectors during the ongoing aggression on Gaza.’
Gaza’s economy will take years to recover from the devastating impact of the war, in which more than 360 factories have been destroyed or badly damaged and thousands of acres of farmland ruined by tanks, shelling and air strikes. The continued Israeli siege has also severely limited the productivity of the industrial sector since it was imposed for the past eight years, forcing factories to close and to demobilise thousands of workers.
In the meantime, Palestinians’ homes and businesses in area C, under full Israeli control, are often targeted by Israeli forces, depriving Palestinians of their source of living under the pretext of being built without a permit. Israel rarely issues construction permits to Palestinians, forcing many of them to embark on construction without a permit.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), between December 30, 2014 and January 12, 2015, the Israeli authorities demolished 27 Palestinian structures in Area C of the West Bank and five in East Jerusalem, in addition to two self demolition incidents, due to lack of Israeli-issued building permits.
