We spent Saturday in Ramallah, the same day that Condoleeza Rice met with Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, and we met with a couple human rights organizations, including Addammer and Defence for Children International-Palestine section (DCI/PS) (which also has an Israel section). They were the kind of presentations that kind of leave you feeling sort of numb after hearing so many statistics and stories about injustices and human rights violations. What DOES one do with statistics like these?
- Since September 2000, the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising against occupation (Intifada) DCI/PS has documented the case of each Palestinian child killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since 9/00, there have been 708 child fatalities.
- There are at least 750 Palestinians in Israeli prisons being held without charge or trial.
- Since the beginning of this Intifada in September 2000, over 2500 children have been arrested.
What does one do with statistics like these?
The issue concerning children is just insane. To hear stories about how they arrest these children, and the type of legal representation they get in the military courts. One thing that has been happening very often recently is that the Israeli army will go in and arrest a child once they are 16 years old for something that they did when they were 11 or 12. The age breakdown is just ridiculous. The basic law for Israelis (which is not a territorial law, because this law is the same for Israeli citizens and for Jewish/Israeli settlers living within the Occupied Territories, but does not hold for Palestinians within the Occupied Territories) states that a child is legally a child until the internationally-recognized age of 18, and then they become an adult. Rather for Palestinians, from 0-12 you are a child. From 13-15 you are an ‘older child’ and then as soon as you hit 16, you are an adult.
So, you have kids who might have thrown stones when they were 10 or 11 years old. And now they are 16, the Israeli army comes in and arrests them, charges them as an adult, and now they are potentially looking at being held in prison for who knows how long and then they could be getting sentences for 6 months to much longer for something that they did years ago. We heard story after story about just some amazingly ridiculous reasons that people were arrested. And many times, there are no reasons whatsoever. Right now, the Israeli army can arrest anyone they want and detain them as long as they want and they don’t have to have any reason whatsoever.
Again, it’s hard to know what to do with all these stories and statistics. Many times they people who shared these stories with our group would just bust out laughing because of how ridiculous these stories were. Is it really for Israeli security to arrest hundreds and thousands of children? Is it really for Israeli security to arrest and charge a man with seeking out terrorist education because he watched a documentary on a TV news station about the history of the missile? Is it really for Israeli security that a teenage girl was arrested crossing a checkpoint because she had a knife in her back for her school art class, and she is being charged for attempting to stab someone (when she did nothing of the sort)?
And if you think this is all propaganda, go check out B’tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) for more information from Israelis; or check out Amnesty International’s information on Israel and the Occupied Territories.