STOLEN CHILDREN, STOLEN LIVES and MORE

Here we have more on the treatment of Israeli children. The film Stolen Children, Stolen Lives is overflowing with stories and imagery that does not seem to hit the mainstream media. The goal of such treatment is to break the young spirits of Palestine and is totally illegal according to international law. Of course, Israel does not care about such trivialities.

“They may look young to you,

but these people are terrorists at heart.

Don’t look at their deceptively innocent faces,

try to think of the demons inside each of them.

I am absolutely certain these people

would grow to be evil terrorists

if we allowed them to grow.

Would you allow them to grow to kill your children

or finish them off right now?

Honest and moral people ought to differentiate

between true humans and human animals.

We do kill human animals

and we do so unapologetically.

Besides, who in the West is in a position

to lecture us on killing human animals.

After all, whose hands are clean?” 

~ Israeli spokesman, Nachman Abramovic
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Muhammad Bilal Abdul Salam At-Tamimi in Nabi Saleh on Friday  

Photo: Keren Manor/activestills.org

"I asked him directly, ‘what does it take for you to look at children and shoot at them with tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire?” He nonchalantly informed me that they are not children, rather enemies on a battlefield. When I asked him if he considered me an enemy for standing with the children, he brushed away the question suggesting that I was just confused." ~ Joseph Dana

Eleven-year-old Muhammad Bilal Abdul Salam At-Tamimi was standing in a crowd when soldiers began firing tear gas canisters in their direction. Tamimi was hit directly on the side of his stomach and taken to a Ramallah hospital. After a brief stay in hospital, he was released in what appeared to be a good condition.
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Two days following the incident, Tamimi began complaining of pain in his stomach and was readmitted to hospital. Doctors found that he was suffering from internal bleeding of the liver and kidneys caused by the tear gas canister injury, his father told Ma’an this morning.

Tamimi’s internal bleeding is the latest injury to a child reported in Nabi Saleh. Many children have been injured from tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets and even live fire in the village over the last two years of demonstrations. This type of violence against Palestinian children is not uncommon, and sadly, it is growing as Israel explores new options of ending nonviolent Palestinian resistance to occupation.

Health of Palestinian child hit by IOF canister worsening

Addressing the 6^th annual Bil’in conference on Palestinian popular resistance, Advocate Gabi Lasky spoke of how children are being used to implicate the leaders of popular unarmed demonstrations like those in Nabi Saleh and Bil’in.  Lasky, an Israeli lawyer who has represented high profile Palestinian political prisoners such as Abdullah Abu Rahmah, told the crowd that Israel has failed to end unarmed demonstrations by military force. The army has killed 21 unarmed demonstrators, including five children, injured hundreds and used collective punishment on villages through the liberal use of violent crowd control measures and night raids. Nevertheless the demonstrations have not stopped. Now Israel is using the military court system to end the demonstrations.

The method is simple and effective: arrest children in military night raids, verbally harass and traumatize them, interrogate them without the presence of lawyers or parents and inform them that the maltreatment will stop as soon as they confess that popular committee leaders instructed them to throw stones. Despite the illegality of these methods, Israel is currently deploying them in Nabi Saleh.

STOLEN CHILDREN, STOLEN LIVES PART 1

STOLEN CHILDREN, STOLEN LIVES PART 2

INSIDE THE ISRAELI MILITARY REPRESSION OF NABI SALEH: NIGHT RAIDS from Joseph Dana on Vimeo.
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Inside the Israeli Military Repression of Nabi Saleh: Night Raids from Joseph Dana on Vimeo.

The military repression of Nabi Saleh, up close and personal. This video was taken in Janurary 2011 in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, west of Ramallah. The Israeli army raided the village at 02:00 and went from house to house in order to photograph and record the ID information of the children and young adults. In this video, both of the children, 11 year old Kareem and 14 year old Islam were arrested in the days following the raid. 14 year old Islam has been in January since the time of his arrest and will have a hearing on 14 Feb 2011 regarding the charge of stone throwing during a demonstration against the occupation in Nabi Saleh. 11 year old was arrested following this night raid but released after a five hour interrogation.

For those that do not understand Hebrew or Arabic, what is being said by the soldiers is strict discussion about names and ID numbers. The commander spells the names of each of the children and recites their id numbers for this second officer who writes down the information. At one point, towards the end of the video, the commander asks if the child threw stones during the demonstrations. The answer given by his mother is no.

For more on the military repression of the popular struggle in the West Bank please visit The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. popularstruggle.org. The video is courtesy of the Belal Tamimi of Nabi Saleh who shot the footage. 

ISRAELI POLICE ABDUCT TERRIFIED CHILD WHILE MOTHER WATCHES

Testimonies collected by the rights groups reveal a pattern of children some as young as seven years old being arrested in late-night raids, handcuffed and interrogated for hours without either a parent or lawyer being present. In many cases, the children have reported physical violence or threats. Particularly troubling, are testimonies of children under the age of 12, the minimal age set by the law for criminal liability, who were taken in for questioning, and who were not spared rough and abusive interrogation.

It was taken on a Tuesday morning after Israeli authorities had completed another house raid. As the army and police were leaving, one police van stops and two border police officers jump out. 11-year-old Kareem Tamimi comes running into the frame, running towards his mother. The camerawoman begins shouting "Child! Child!" in Hebrew to the border police officers to no avail.
 
The border police officers capture the child, handling him as if he was a fully grown adult. Within seconds he is in the police van and on the way out of the village toward an undisclosed location. His mother's cries as she slams her hands against the windows of police van are disregarded by the border police officers.
 
Kareem's arrest was part of a strategy to apply as much pressure as possible on his 14-year-old brother Islam, who was arrested the previous day in a night raid, in order that Islam will deliver any script that his investigators wanted. The strategy worked, and Kareem was released later the same evening.
 
After this arrest happened, the army spokespersons unit alerted the media and twitter followers that another 'wanted suspect' was taken in for security questioning. They failed to mention that he was an 11-year-old child.
 
Tomorrow I will post another video from the current wave of military repression of Nabi Saleh. These videos, seldom seen in the mainstream media, give the Palestinian perspective on life under Israeli Occupation. This is the price that Palestinians pay if they refuse to be silent under Occupation.

http://972mag.com/author/josephd/

"We have heard many testimonies from children who describe terrifying experiences of violence during both their arrest and their later interrogation."

"One of the men grabbed me from behind and started choking me. The second grabbed my shirt and tore it from the back, and the third twisted my hands behind my back and tied them with plastic cords. 'Who threw stones?' one of them asked me. 'I don't know,' I said. He started hitting me on the head and I shouted in pain."

Jawad Siyam, a local community activist in Silwan, said the goal of the arrests and the increased settler activity was to "make life unbearable and push us out of the area".

The 60 experts who wrote to Mr Netanyahu warned that the children's abuse led to "post-traumatic stress disorders, such as nightmares, insomnia, bed-wetting, and constant fear of policemen and soldiers". They also noted that children under extended house arrest were being denied the right to schooling.

Last year the United Nations Committee Against Torture expressed "deep concern" at Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors, saying Israel was breaking the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which it has signed.

Over the past 12 months, Defence for Children International has provided the UN with details of more than 100 children who claim they were physically or psychologically abused while in military custody.

Israel's war on Jerusalem children: 1,200 arrested in one year-
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/jcook20101214

Silwan's Captive Children When home is jail-
http://palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1681

Nabi Saleh. January 2011. Footage of the arrest of 11 year old Kareem Tamimi. He was detained for five hours and released by Israeli army officials. His brother, 14 year old Islam, was arrested the previous day and remains in jail. For more on the military repression of the popular struggle in the West Bank please visit The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee