This is the last one I am going to post this morning on Palestinian kids being abused by the Israeli military. They simply don’t see these kids and the other Palestinians as humans like themselves. They feel they alone have a right to the land and all on it. They feel entitled to it despite it belonging to someone else, so they feel they have a right to just take it while abusing those that might be on it. Hugs. Scottie
Some of the abuses are sexual in nature, in addition to being beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded, a report says.
Human rights groups in Israel have denounced the use of unnecessary force to arrest or detain Palestinian children and other violations [File: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images]
Palestinian minors arrested by Israeli forces face immense emotional and physical abuse, according to the rights group Save the Children, which has revealed the tragedy minors go through as detainees in a new report.
In the report published on Monday, the group said some of the former child detainees it spoke to reported violence of a sexual nature, while many others were beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded in small cages in detention centres and upon being moved between centres.
Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Palestinian children are the only ones in the world to experience systematic prosecution in military courts.
There is a marked increase in the number of former child detainees who suffer nightmares and insomnia and have difficulty returning to their normal life, with many reporting a decrease in hope for their futures.
The study said 86 percent of the 228 former child detainees surveyed were beaten in detention, and 69 percent were strip-searched, adding that 42 percent were injured at the point of arrest, including gunshot wounds and broken bones.
They were also interrogated at unknown locations without the presence of a guardian or caregiver and are often deprived of food, water and sleep, the report says.
In addition, they were often refused access to legal counsel, according to the research.
Save the Children said the former child detainees surveyed were from across the occupied West Bank and had been detained for one month to 18 months.
The report says: “The main alleged crime for these detentions is stone-throwing, which can carry a 20-year sentence in prison for Palestinian children.”
Palestinian children are the only ones in the world to experience systematic prosecution in military courts [File: Getty Images]
The new research comes as the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 presents evidence on Monday to the Human Rights Council on Palestinian children in detention.
It is estimated that between 500 and 1,000 children are held in Israeli military detention each year.
Former detainee accounts
Osama Arabi, a former detainee who is now 44 years old, said he was strip-searched when he was arrested as a minor.
“I did not understand what they were searching for. They didn’t say. It was humiliating; it made me very angry,” Osama, who was arrested as a 14-year-old, told Al Jazeera.
Save the Children said these practices are a serious and longstanding human rights concern and called for the government of Israel to end the detention of Palestinian children under military law and their prosecution in military courts.
Khalil, who was arrested when he was 13, said he did not receive essential healthcare.
Save the Children quoted him as saying: “I had an injury in my leg. I had a cast and had to crawl to be able to move. I felt my body being torn apart. I had no canes to help me walk, I kept asking soldiers for help during the transfer, but no one helped me.”
Country director Lee said: “Our research shows – once again – that they [Palestinian children] are subject to serious and widespread abuse at the hands of those who are meant to be looking after them.”
Palestinian minors arrested by Israeli forces face immense emotional and physical abuse, according to the rights group Save the Children, which has revealed the tragedy minors go through as detainees in a new report. In the report published on Monday, the group said some of the former child detainees it spoke to reported violence of a sexual nature, while many others were beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded in small cages in detention centres and upon being moved between centres.
At a time when Israel is on a full court media press to look like the aggrieved party, with the Anti-Defamation League paying for commercials touting that what we all need to remember right now was how badly Israeli was attacked and abused. They want us to ignore the 15,000 Palestinian deaths, 1/3 of those are children. They want us to ignore the abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank who are being killed, having their property destroyed and taken, and being treated like prisoners by Israeli settlers backed up by the IDF. Now the world is seeing the Israeli government for what it truly is. Hugs. Scottie
Ynet said that just a few months after he convinced the IDF that he should remain in the military, the soldier began to commit the series of serious sexual offenses against Palestinians from 2013 to 2015.
A military court permitted news outlets to report on Wednesday that the soldier was imprisoned for the rape, as well as committing sexual assault against other Palestinian women and a man and extorting them for sexual favors, among other crimes, ending a years-long gag order on the case.
In addition, the officer was found guilty of multiple counts of sexual harassment for repeatedly asking a Palestinian man and an acquaintance of his to have sex.
Soldier had reportedly faced disciplinary committee over sexual harassment of female officers, but convinced military to allow him to remain in service
Illustrative: An IDF soldier sits in a military court. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)
An Israeli Defense Forces officer who has been imprisoned since 2017 for multiple sexual offenses, including the rape of a Palestinian woman, had faced dismissal from the military months before the attacks over his sexual harassment of female officers, it was reported Thursday.
The Ynet news site, which first broke the story of the serviceman’s sexual offenses, said the officer, whose name remains barred from publication, came close to dismissal from the military after two incidents in which he sexually harassed female soldiers.
Although he was found guilty in a disciplinary case on the matter, he managed to convince the military that he should remain in the army, presenting letters of recommendation from his officer and certificates of excellence he had received during his service.
A disciplinary committee also found that the soldier slapped a female soldier in 2005, propositioned another soldier and watched pornography with a group of soldiers.
Additionally, Ynet said the committee was told that he was involved in three other incidents “of a sexual nature, verbal sexual harassment and even physical,” but was not prosecuted for those.
Ynet said that just a few months after he convinced the IDF that he should remain in the military, the soldier began to commit the series of serious sexual offenses against Palestinians from 2013 to 2015.
In his defense, the officer claimed that the details of the sexual harassment were taken out of proportion. He said that he did not slap the female soldier, but it was a slight touch and he apologized for it. The officer was held in a military prison for a week for striking the soldier. He denied all other charges and has said he was not warned he was in danger of dismissal, Ynet reported.
A military court permitted news outlets to report on Wednesday that the soldier was imprisoned for the rape, as well as committing sexual assault against other Palestinian women and a man and extorting them for sexual favors, among other crimes, ending a years-long gag order on the case.
The Israel Defense Forces’ Court of Appeals decided to rescind the gag order on the affair, which was considered to have potentially serious security ramifications due to its dramatic nature, following an appeal by the Ynet news site and years of legal battles. In a statement, the military said the gag order had been deemed necessary, in part, “to preserve national security.”
The officer served in the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, which is tasked with overseeing the day-to-day management of the West Bank. The officer, a major, was responsible for issuing permits for Palestinians to enter and work in Israel, a position of power that he repeatedly exploited in order to receive sexual favors from Palestinians.
He was first indicted in early 2016, but the case was subjected to a strict gag order, allowing news outlets at the time to report only that he had been charged with “serious sexual crimes and other crimes of moral turpitude.”
He was convicted nearly a year later, in December 2016, and sentenced two months later to 11 years in prison. The major was also stripped of his rank and summarily dismissed from the military.
In addition, he was forced to pay NIS 18,000 ($5,600) in damages to the women he raped and NIS 9,000 ($2,800) to the woman he sexually exploited.
At the time of his sentencing, the Israel Defense Forces said he had been convicted of “sexual offenses, sexual harassment, bribe-taking, fraud, breach of trust and exceeding his authority to extent of posing a national security risk.” Few other details about the cases were permitted to be published at the time.
Illustrative: Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, April 23, 2021. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
This week, some four and a half years later, the IDF Court of Appeals — effectively the military’s internal supreme court — ruled that additional details could be published about the case, including the specific offenses of which the officer was convicted.
In their ruling on removing the gag order on the case, the panel of three judges from the IDF Court of Appeals wrote: “There is no dispute that there is a public interest in publicizing the details of this case, which has severe implications for the wider public.”
The officer was found to have raped one Palestinian woman, who had come to him to receive a permit to work in Israel, on at least two occasions. He also repeatedly sexually harassed her, trying to get her to have sex with other people as well.
The military court, based in part on audio recordings that the woman made, determined that in the first instance of rape, the officer had forced her to have sex with him and then made her clean up the floor afterwards, before giving her the work permit.
A few days later, he called her and told her that he had rescinded the permit and again forced her to have sex with him in order to get it back.
In both cases, the Palestinian woman refused his demands for sex, and in both cases, he threatened to take away her work permit if she told anyone about the rape.
He was also convicted of receiving a bribe by forcing another Palestinian woman to have sex with him multiple times in exchange for a work permit. Despite the clear power imbalance, this was not deemed to have been rape as the victim did not explicitly refuse his demands for sex.
In addition, the officer was found guilty of multiple counts of sexual harassment for repeatedly asking a Palestinian man and an acquaintance of his to have sex.
In a somewhat separate case, the officer was also convicted of sharing intelligence gathered by the Shin Bet security service with two Palestinian women who had asked him for work permits.
In March, the officer appealed his sentence to the IDF Court of Appeals. The court upheld his 11-year sentence but overturned the lower court’s decision to discharge him from the military, instead demoting him from major to private.
It was largely a procedural decision, as the officer had anyway been fired from the military. The punishment of dismissal from the military is generally reserved for crimes that more directly harm national security.
The officer was sent to a civilian prison to carry out his 11-year sentence.
Israel is preventing any celebration of the freed children and adults from Israeli prisons, at the same time the Israeli media along with the world has splashed the joyous reunions of Israeli families with the captives that Hamas released. See again how degrading and subhuman Israel treats Palestinians. No Palestinian / Arab family can rejoice that their child is home will whole towns hold parades for the Jewish / Israeli children coming home. It is sickening to me, and again creates more hate and ill will. Hugs. Scottie
In another fuck you to the Palestinians, Israel arrested all most as many as they released. Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.
Mohammad Salhab Tamimi, 18, was returned to his family on Tuesday as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.
Mohammad was relieved and happy, yet subdued and traumatised by what he had been through [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
By Mosab Shawer
Published On 29 Nov 202329 Nov 2023
Hebron, occupied West Bank – After eight months in Israeli prisons without being charged or processed, 18-year-old Mohammad Salhab Tamimi was finally able to return to his family as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.
His boyish face was serious as he embraced his parents and stood, slightly bewildered, as if he was unsure whether to speak to the press or not.
He had been through a lot in the past eight months of uncertainty, torment that only increased since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7.
The last thing he was told by the forbidding Israeli prison guards was that he would be rearrested and put back into the limbo of administrative detention if his family and friends showed any signs of celebrating his return.
“’Tell your friends [they said]’… If we have a big celebration, I will return to prison,” he recalled.
Wary of the Israeli military checkpoint and illegal settlement next to their home, his family kept their happiness on mute, with only the immediate family and some uncles present.
Shackled, kicked around, humiliated
Luckily for the family, smiles don’t make any noise, and nobody could stop the smiles on his mother Fatima and father Murshid’s faces as they held tightly to their “little boy”.
Mohammad with Fatima and Murshid, beaming with joy, but quietly [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
Their boy was among the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Ofer prison near Ramallah in the small hours of Tuesday overnight. Up to the last minute, he had not been sure what was happening to him.
At 7am (05:00 GMT) on Monday, November 27, a guard at Rimon Prison demanded that Mohammad get ready to be transferred to Ofer Prison. That was all; nothing about the reason why he was being moved. Just told to strip off completely, put on just a grey prison sweatsuit, and gather all his belongings.
“I put my clothes in one of those plastic envelopes and walked to the cell door where they cuffed my hands and forced my head down so I was looking at the ground.
“The officer then kicked me, hard. His boots have steel in them, so it felt like he crushed my feet, it really hurt.
“He dragged me to the prison yard but, as he was dragging me out of the prison, he stopped to take my clothes from me and threw them into a garbage pail. Then, cursing me with obscene language, he dragged me out,” Mohammad recalled haltingly.
Bosta rides can take 12 hours or more. There are no rest stops, food, or toilet breaks. “I was kept in the vehicle cell without anything to eat or drink until after midnight,” said Mohammad.
Mohammad was made to strip down and wear only a grey prison sweatsuit. All his other belongings were thrown away by a prison guard who was beating and cursing him at the same time [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
His father and uncle were standing there outside Ofer, waiting for him, when he was finally released in the wee hours on Tuesday so they could drive him home to Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.
A decision to humiliate
Things were more unpleasant than usual in prison after October 7, which was when Hamas launched a surprise attack from Gaza on southern Israel killing some 1,200 people.
People held in several institutions have reported severe beatings, denial of medical attention, lawyer and family visits, yard time, electricity, water, and hygiene essentials from the prison shop.
At least six Palestinian prisoners died or were killed in Israeli custody since October 7, including some shortly after their arrest.
Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack lasted 48 days and killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children.
On the 49th day, Friday, a four-day “humanitarian pause” negotiated by Egypt and Qatar began. Both sides said they would release captives – Hamas would release batches of people it took captive on October 7 in return for three times as many Palestinians held – with and without cause – in Israeli detention facilities.
As the exchanges continued and optimism rose, the truce was extended by two days to keep the exchanges going.
Mohammad was very happy to see his mother, Fatima, again [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.
Mohammad is not the first released person to say that there is extreme overcrowding in Israeli prisons.
“There were 10 prisoners shoved into cells that only had six beds. We used to have to spread blankets or something on the floor to sleep,” he said.
The amount of food they were given was insufficient, as it was also for six prisoners, not 10. The cellmates had to ration what food they got carefully.
Several prisoners were injured one day as well, Mohammad said, when prison guards attacked two sections of Rimon Prison
Aside from injuries and the reported deaths, Mohammad said: “The [Israeli] occupation had pretty much decided that they would humiliate the prisoners, ever since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Storm.”
Cut off from any news of the outside world, the detainees found themselves stripped of almost everything, including all possessions that were in their cells like utensils and appliances, they used to make things a little more pleasant. They were deprived of buying hygiene supplies, including laundry detergent, and barred from using the washing machines to wash their clothes.
Prison authorities also kept the prisoners away from their only outlet to let off some steam – the “fora”, or prison yard, and prevented them from making any noise.
“I used to love making the call to prayer from inside my cell so the whole section could hear, but that too was forbidden.
“It felt like they didn’t want us to even breathe.”
Illustrative: An IDF soldier sits in a military court. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)
Illustrative: Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, April 23, 2021. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)
