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8,000 West Bank children arrested since 2000, says new report

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

The Electronic Intifada
<http://electronicintifada.net/people/electronic-intifada> Beit Sahour

<http://electronicintifada.net/location/beit-sahour> 26 March 2012

http://electronicintifada.net/content/8000-west-bank-children-arrest\

ed-2000-says-new-report/11100

BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank (IPS) – Hamza has memories that no 17-year-old
should have.

Last year, he was arrested in the middle of the night on suspicion that
he threw stones at Israeli settlers near his school in the West Bank. He
was handcuffed, blindfolded and beaten on the way to interrogation.

“They asked me when did I throw stones, and how, what time exactly,
at night or in the morning, and who was there with me,” he said.
“When they took me to the prison they put me in a small cell. They
used to throw the food through the space between the door and the floor.
We had our meals in the same place where we peed. Sometimes they
stripped us; they stripped us and mocked us, and beat us at the same
time.”

Hamza spent five months in Ofer
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ofer-prison> military prison. He
had no contact with his parents or family, who were denied the right to
visit him.

Three months after he was released from prison, he entered the
YMCA’s rehabilitation program in Beit Sahour, near his home in the
West Bank village of Takoua. The change, he said, was almost immediate.

“I was comfortable with the [counseling] sessions I had, and I felt
myself getting better, even better than before the prison,” said
Hamza, now studying to become a carpenter. “After I started working
in carpentry, I became stronger, nothing scared me any more. I started
to look at the future in a positive light.”

Recent estimates have found that Israel arrests and detains about 700
Palestinian children annually. This reality has forced Palestinians in
the West Bank, including East Jerusalem
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem> , to develop
programs that address the widespread trauma these children exhibit when
released from prison.

Founded in 1989, shortly after the start of the first Palestinian
intifada, the East Jerusalem YMCA rehabilitation program is one such. It
rests on three tracks — psycho-social support, empowerment, and
reintegration. It aims to get ex-detainee children back into school, or
into work training programs.

According to program director Nader Abu Amsha, a major focus is placed
on giving children the coping mechanisms necessary to avoid constantly
reliving their trauma once they are released from prison. “We are
trying our best to help not just in therapy, but in building the coping
mechanism and in helping people maintain their resilience ability to
these traumatic experiences.
Triggers of trauma
“A trauma might happen once in life,” Abu Amsha said. “But
here, when it comes to having daily hard experiences like checkpoints,
like soldiers around, like settlers attacking people … everything
surrounding you might be a trigger for a traumatic event you went
through.”

Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Program
released a report on 11 March about the impact of Israeli arrests and
detention on Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation. The
organizations estimate that since 2000, Israel has arrested and detained
over 8,000 Palestinian children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
including some as young as 12.

Handcuffed and blindfolded, the children — who are most often
arrested on suspicion of throwing stones — are transported to either
Israeli prisons or settlements
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-settlements> in the West
Bank for interrogation, which almost always take place without the
children’s parents or a lawyer present, the report stated.

All Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to Israel’s military
courts system, which was set up shortly after Israel began occupying the
territory in 1967. According to the report, these courts “are not
intended to function as a comprehensive legal system” but rather,
“must be understood as the `judicial arm’ of the occupying
power, which means that the emphasis lies more on security than on
justice.”
Nightmares
The report also found that nearly all children (98 percent) were
subjected to physical or psychological violence during their arrest and
detention, and that 90 percent of children suffered from post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), experiencing nightmares, bed-wetting, anxiety
and other signs of trauma upon their release.

“All of these symptoms can’t be left [alone]; it’s the core
of our interests to help them get rid of the psychological impact of the
imprisonment and the hard experience they went through,” Abu Amsha
said. “Their right is to be rehabilitated.”

For 19-year-old Mouath, another Palestinian teenager who spent eight
months in Israel’s Ofer military prison on charge of throwing
stones, the rehabilitation process has been beneficial not only for
himself, but also for his family and friends, who have seen a positive
change.

“I went to school after [I was released], but they refused to take
me back. I sat jobless at home. I was in trouble with my parents and my
friends all the time. My spirits were down, crushed. I had frequent
thoughts about the prison. I was very scared,” Mouath said.

Today, after counseling sessions, he no longer feels afraid. “The
occupation is still going on, but now the soldiers don’t bother me.
I am very much relieved,” said Mouath, who now works in automobile
electronics. “My problems became less. My psychological hardships
and the negative thoughts are gone now.”

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2  Wednesday, March 28 2012

Independent commentary and news from Israel & Palestine

March 28 2012|+972blog

Israeli interrogated en route back to Israel for her activism in Palestinian cause

The activist tells of her experience being held for hours, harassed and intimidated by Israel Security Agency officials – for doing nothing illegal or suspicious.

http://972mag.com/israeli-interrogated-en-route-back-to-israel-for-her-activism-in-palestinian-cause/39570/

By Leehee Rothschild

I arrived at Luton airport for my flight back to Israel, after spending one month in the UK and France, participating in Israeli Apartheid Week and BDS events. That, along with my ongoing activism for Palestinian rights, made me a security risk of the highest level for the Israeli state.

The troubles began at the Israeli security counter before check-in. I answered all the questions correctly: “Did you pack alone?” “Yes.” “Has your luggage been with you at all time?” “Yes.” The security person wasn’t really listening; he was checking his lists instead. A higher ranking security person was called over; my passport was taken away. This person seemed fascinated by my whereabouts while abroad, demanding names and details of people I had met, which I didn’t share.

They announced that all my luggage must be inspected, marking my bags with yellow stripes and the number six, the highest level in Israeli airport security profiling. In my carry-on bag, I was allowed only “Purse, mobile, book, and coat,” in a plastic bag.  Finally after about 45 minutes, I was allowed to leave, taking only what they allowed me in the carry-on; I was already checked in, in a marked seat of their choosing. I was instructed to go through British security, and head straight to the gate.

At the gate, I was taken into a small room. The plastic carry-on bag was taken away for inspection, and I had to strip behind a curtain. For what seemed like I ages I stood shivering in tights and an undershirt while they scanned my cloths, from jeans to bra. Then another woman scanned me, feeling me all over, touching the clothes I still wore with gauze, taking samples for “chemical inspection.” When I protested, she said that objections will make me miss my flight. They finally returned my clothes, then spent another 20 minutes checking my phone contacts. They walked me onto the plane five minutes before the flight took off.

On the Israeli side, the ordeal continued. The passport inspector took my passport, and made me follow another security officer through long corridors and stairs. She locked my plastic carry-on bag in a small cupboard, checked my pockets, and showed me into a nearby room for “questioning.”

Two men and a woman were sitting inside. The men introduced themselves as Shavit, “Head of the extreme left and right department in the Internal Security Services,” and Reshef. The woman was never introduced. They called her Karin, and explained that she had been instructed to remain silent throughout the whole process.

I was interrogated for over three hours. They said they were just “getting to know me better” and I asked whether I was allowed to leave. I wasn’t. They claimed they were unrelated to the inspections in London, and that our conversation wasn’t taped, and they were unhappy with the fact that I doubted both statements. Shavit explained that because of my activities, which were all legitimate, they must warn me that some of the Palestinians I collaborate with might try to use me to transfer people, or things into Israel, people who may be terrorists, things that might be bombs, and they want me to acknowledge this risk. Then he said that they wanted to understand what drove me to be an activist. I said I don’t want to talk to them. They didn’t seem to care.

Mostly, I remained silent. Silent as they asked where I had been abroad, the meetings I attended and the lectures I gave. Silent, when they asked whether I was involved with international projects like the Welcome to Palestine initiative, the Gaza flotilla, the Global March to Jerusalem. Silent when they asked about Anarchists Against the Wall meetings, and when they offered their “assistance” in getting permits for demonstrations, or delivering messages to the soldiers in the West Bank with tips on how to better deal with demonstrations. Frustrated with my non-cooperation they asked personal questions, about my family, my studies, my relations with fellow activists, my apartment, and my looks, their attitude alternating between friendly and offensive.

Reshef said that I don’t look like an anarchist as he went through my clothing items, remarking on each one. Shavit warned him that this was sexual harassment, then tried to persuade me to meet up for coffee, and have a friendly chat. I was silent to that as well, braiding my hair, biding my time.

They threatened to make me spend the night there. They said things suggesting that they were tapping my phone, reading my emails, and bugging my apartment. They tried playing good cop, bad cop, and took turns leaving the room.

After nearly three hours, when I remained steadfastly silent, they gave up. Before releasing me, Shavit warned me again not to be used by anyone. He said that for now, I’ve stayed within the law, but once I broke it, I’d better remember that they are watching me, and that they view me as a leader, so I could be held responsible for leading other people into illegal acts. Then he went out to get a security officer and my passport. Another 20 minutes elapsed before I was finally escorted through passport control, and left the airport.

They recommended that I keep it private, which was one motive for publishing this story. This so-called friendly conversation, just like the less friendly police raid on my house about a year ago, are meant to intimidate and threaten me and others like me. They want us to know that we are being watched, tapped, and followed. They try to frighten us into submission, and to terrorize us into silence. They will fail. Three hours of interrogation were a small price to pay compared with the suffering of my Palestinian partners, and I will keep on raising my voice for freedom and justice, until the whole world will chant along.

Leehee Rothschild has been active in the Palestinian struggle for over a decade. She currently works with Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott From Within. She writes about activism and political struggle on her blog, Radically Blonde and other publications.

           

3  Today in Palestine

March 28, 2012

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi/message/3440

 

 

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