Palestinian children, families haunted by Israeli arrests at night
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Raven Ruma
- . January 13, 2023
- . Update: January 13, 2023 10:11 pm
When Israeli commandos barged into Yousef Mesheh’s house at three in the morning, he was sound asleep in his bunk bed.
The 15-year-old Palestinian claimed that after only a few seconds, the military had struck him and were cursing at him while he lay on the ground. A soldier kept his mother in the bedroom while she pleaded for her sons, then whacked her in the chest with the rifle butt.
Yousef and his 16-year-old brother Wael were dragged from their house in the northern West Bank refugee camp of Balata. Yousef was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and needed his spectacles to see.
Yousef, speaking to The Associated from his living room, which is plastered with pictures of Wael, who is still being held, said, “I can’t forget that night. “I still hear the shooting and shouting when I go to sleep.”
According to a forthcoming report by the Israeli human rights group HaMoked, the Israeli military detained and questioned hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in 2022 in the occupied West Bank without ever issuing a summons or informing their families.
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The accusations against those who were detained included everything from entering Israel without authorization to hurling Molotov bombs or stones. Some teenagers claim that the reason they were detained was to learn more about their neighbours or relatives.
Director of HaMoked Jessica Montell stated, “We started asking that the night arrest of minors be the final resort.
The rights organisation claimed that two years prior, when the Israeli government requested that the military urge parents to bring their children for questioning in response to a Supreme Court appeal by HaMoked, there had been some improvement. However, statistics provided to the Supreme Court show that the army rarely called on Palestinian parents to question their children.
In the approximately 300 cases HaMoked recorded in the West Bank last year, not a single family received a summons. situations when children were discharged without being charged for minor offences. HaMoked claimed that the statistics are inaccurate since it thinks that numerous instances of similar events go unreported.
In response to a request for comment, the Israeli military stated that it makes an effort to call Palestinian minors who are only suspected of committing small infractions and who have no prior record of being convicted of significant crimes. The army countered that significant crimes or instances in which “a summons to an investigation would impair its objective” are exempt from this guideline.
However, the army claimed that Wael, Yousef’s brother, is accused of “severe financial offences,” including “contacting the enemy,” “illegally bringing in money,” and aiding “an illegal organisation.” The army declined to comment on Yousef’s detention. These accusations mainly refer to incidents where Palestinians spoke with residents of the Gaza Strip, which is governed by Hamas.
