Number of Palestinian children in Israeli

prisons doubles

Palestinian children walk past Israeli forces at a checkpoint in Jerusalem in November.

Mahfouz Abu TurkAPA images

Charlotte Silver-8 December 2015

Charlotte Silver-8 December 2015
Marah Bakir, 16, was leaving school in occupied East Jerusalems Sheikh
Jarrah neighborhood on 12 October when she was shot and injured by Israeli police.
They allege she intended to stab an officer.
However, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that Marah had been
walking with a friend when they were harassed by an Israeli who accused her of being
a terrorist. Witnesses said police quickly surrounded her and opened fire four or five
times.

Marah is now one of three Palestinian teenage girls held in Ramle prison with Israeli
women convicted of criminal offenses.
Filthy cell
The Palestinian rights group Addameer says keeping the girls in this prison amounts
to psychological torture because they are isolated from other Palestinian
female political prisoners, who are held at Hasharon prison.
The girls live in constant fear and avoid sleeping, the group says. The three are being
held in a filthy cell with two bunk beds, a blanket and a mattress.
Israel Prison Service guards confiscated the girls warm clothes and headscarves, and
keep them shackled during their recreation period, according to Addameer, whose
lawyers have visited them.
Addameer reports that neither Marah nor her 14-year-old cellmate Istabraq Nour are
receiving necessary follow-up treatment for bullet wounds.
Istabraq was shot and detained last month. Israel claimed she intended to sneak into
the extremist Israelistronghold of Yitzhar, a settlement in the occupied West Bank, with
a knife.
Surging arrests
Minors represent approximately a fifth of the 2,000 Palestinians Israel has detained
since violence escalated at the beginning of October. Palestinian children from
occupied East Jerusalem form a large part of this group.
With the surge in arrests, the number of Palestinian children in Israeli
detention doubled to 307 at the end of October compared with 155 at the end of
August.
While children living under Israeli military rule in most of the occupied West Bank have
long been denied basic rights, those in East Jerusalem are ostensibly subject to the
same civil laws and judicial system as Israeli citizens and have access to Israels
national insurance system.
But human rights groups have documented a deterioration in their treatment and
conditions in Israeli detention as well.
In order to accommodate the large number of children it is arresting, Israel opened a
new wing for Palestinian minors at Givon prison in October.
According to Addameers Rafat Sub Laban, there are now approximately 75 children
at Givon, most of them from Jerusalem.
The facility has a maximum of 12 cells, each with six beds, indicating that even Givon
is at capacity.
As The Electronic Intifada reported last month, the conditions at the prison are

abysmal.
Lawyers from human rights groups, including the Public Committee Against Torture in
Israel, Addameer and Defense for Children InternationalPalestine, have all collected
testimonies from children, who report being beaten, denied adequate food and held in
moldy and frigid jail cells.
Children told Addameers lawyer during a 3 December visit that they suffer from
nightmares, sleep disorders and are subjected to beatings, threats and sleep
deprivation.
As in the cases of Marah Bakir and Istabraq Nour, some children at Givon are not
receiving adequate medical attention.
Addameers Sub Laban told The Electronic Intifada that normally there is a Palestinian
adult stationed in prisons with Palestinian children to act as a liaison with prison
authorities. But no such person exists in Givon.
Parents barred
The youngest Palestinian alleged by Israel to be involved in a stabbing is 12-year-old
Ali Alqam.
Ali and his 14-year-old cousin, Muawiya, are accused of stabbing and lightly wounding
a security guard on a light rail train near Beit Hanina in occupied East Jerusalem on 10
November.
Ali was hit by three bullets in his abdomen, pelvis and right hand.

Israeli paramedics and forces evacuate 12-year-old Ali Alqam who was shot after
allegedly stabbing a security guard at a tramway station in the Pisgat Zeev settlement
in occupied East Jerusalem on 10 November. His 14-year-old cousin Muawiya Alqam
was arrested during the incident.Oren ZivActiveStills
A lawyer with Defense for Children InternationalPalestine visited Ali on 15 November
while he was still at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.
A spokesperson for the group told The Electronic Intifada that police prohibited their
lawyer from asking questions about Alis interrogation. Alis family also said that the
police prevented them from visiting their son in the hospital.
According to Addameers Rafat Sub Laban, Muawiya is being held at Givon and Ali is
detained at a closed rehabilitation facility while they both await trial.
Targeting children
Even before the recent escalation, Israeli violence against Palestinian minors in
custody was on the rise.
Between January and June 2015, 86 percent of Palestinian children reported some
kind of physical violence after their arrest, according to data collected by Defense for
Children InternationalPalestine an increase of 10 percent from the prior year.
Since Israels intensified crackdown on Palestinians began more than two months ago,
violations of the rights of Palestinian children in Israels civil court system have sharply
increased.
In November, Israels parliament approved a series of harsh measures.
The Knesset gave preliminary approval to a bill to imprison children as young as 12
who are accused of terrorism. The law will affect Palestinian citizens of Israel and
Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israels current laws bar imprisonment of children under the age of 14.
Earlier in the month, the Knesset passed a law mandating sentences of 4 to 10 years
for throwing stones at moving vehicles.
Israeli lawmakers also amended the national insurance law so that benefits can be
revoked from children convicted of nationalistic-motivated offenses or terrorist
activities.
They also raised the fines courts can impose on their families to more than $2,500
dollars.
While the laws do not specify that Palestinians are the targets, human rights groups
anticipate this will be how they are applied.
Previous policy changes affecting related offenses have applied almost exclusively to

the Palestinian population in occupied East Jerusalem, Addameer and Defense for
Children InternationalPalestine say in ajoint statement.
Extrajudicial executions
Palestinian children have also not escaped Israels policy of extrajudicial executions.
Of more than 100 Palestinians killed in October and November, 23 were
children, according to the United Nations monitoring group OCHA.
The majority were killed during alleged stabbing attempts, but in a number of cases
eyewitnesses and video footage indicate that the youths were killed when they posed
no immediate threat.
Human rights organizations and international monitors have condemned Israels
routine practice of extrajudicial executions.
In some instances, like in the killings in separate incidents of 16-year-olds Mutaz
Uweisat and Ahmad Abu al-Rab, Israel has denied requests by families and human
rights groups for autopsies or independent investigations.
Israel is also still withholding the bodies of dozens of Palestinians killed in such
incidents, making it even harder to independently determine what happened.
As long as Israel faces little of the international accountability human rights defenders
are urging, children will continue to bear the brunt of the escalating violence it uses to
maintain its occupation.
Posted by Thavam