Palestinian Children 'Routinely Tortured & Used As Human Shields By Israeli Forces', Says UN

Palestinian children are being used as human shields and tortured in custody by Israeli forces, a report from a UN human rights watchdog has found.

Minors are systematically subjected to physical and verbal abuse, threatened with death, physical violence and sexual assault, said the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in a report released on Thursday.

The body expressed its “deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police.”

Those in custody have access to toilets, food and water routinely restricted, it added.

The findings, which cover the previous ten years, state: “Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released.”

The information was obtained from other UN rights bodies, military sources and Israeli and Palestinian rights groups. Israel did not cooperate with requests for information, it said.

An estimated 7,000 Palestinian children aged between 12 and 17 have been arrested, interrogated and detained since 2002 - an average of two a day, AFP reports.

“These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pre-trial detention," the committee added.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has dismissed the report as “political bashing of Israel.”

“If someone simply wants to magnify their political bias and political bashing of Israel not based on a new report, on work on the ground, but simply recycling old stuff, there is no importance in that,” spokesman Yigal Palmor told Reuters.

Speaking in March, Palmor told Haaretz: “Israel will study the conclusions and will work to implement them through ongoing cooperation with UNICEF, whose work we value and respect.”

The report gave 38 recommendations for improving the protection of children.

It stated: “It is understood that in no other country are children systematically tried by juvenile military courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights. All children prosecuted for offenses they allegedly committed should be treated in accordance with international juvenile justice standards, which provide them with special protection.”

According to 972mag, the recommendations were given “extra weight” in the Israeli media “because UNICEF is not one of the UN bodies regularly dismissed as having an anti-Israel bias.”

It said it responded to a report by the UN children’s agency UNICEF in March on the ill-treatment of Palestinian children and questioned whether the UN committee’s investigation covered new ground.

Gaza children play ‘kidnap the soldier’ at summer camp
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
A Palestinian boy takes part in a military-style summer camp during the youngsters' summer school vacation in Rafah town, in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP) Tweet AFP, Rafah
As the hot weather arrives in Gaza, teenagers head to the town of Rafah for summer camp -- not to play sports but to join war games organised by radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.

Youngsters wearing military fatigues and the movement’s black insignia capture a fellow camper posing as an Israeli soldier and drag him away -- all part of being trained to “resist” the enemy.

Around 100 children under the age of 16 learn from members of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing Al-Quds Brigades how to strip down an AK-47 assault rifle, crawl through tunnels and run across burning tyres amid the sound of explosions on their assault course.

“When I’m older I want to fight in Al-Quds Brigades and capture Israeli troops,” said 12-year-old Ezz, who was this time playing the role of the unfortunate enemy soldier taken from his position atop a scorching sand dune.

Ezz is a pupil at a school in the Gaza Strip run by the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.

Fellow camper Osama, holding a rifle, explains: “We learn to fight so that we’re ready for our resistance against the Zionist enemy (Israel) who occupies our land and kills us.”

The head military trainer at the camp, Abu Khaled, insists it is like any other “youth camp, (but) includes combat training.”

The Al-Quds Brigades instructor, wearing a balaclava, says he sees the “soldiers of the future” in the children he is training, adding that his eldest son is taking part in the two-week camp.

“We want to instil the notion of kidnapping (Israeli) soldiers so that we never forget our prisoners,” he says, referring to previous prisoner exchange deals between the Jewish state and Palestinian groups.

In one of the most significant such swaps, Gaza rulers Hamas released captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for over a thousand Palestinian detainees in an October 2011 deal.

Abu Mohammed, another instructor, insists “there’s no need for children to actually fight. But we train them to, so they can face danger and the fear of (aerial) bombardment.”

The Hamas movement ruling Gaza, meanwhile, has opened its own summer camps to some 100,000 students, boys and girls, aged 10 to 21.

Although not as overtly military-focused as those of Islamic Jihad, the Hamas camps also include rudimentary combat training.

“They’re focused on creativity and fun as well as religious, moral and national education on the right of return of Palestinian refugees and the prisoners issue,” says Mussa al-Samak, one organiser.

But Mohammed al-Shawa, a counsellor for activities being organised in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza, says the aim is “fun, education and learning basic martial arts.”

A Gaza psychologist, requesting anonymity, criticized the participation of children in military exercises.

“This presents a danger to their lives and contravenes international laws for the protection of children,” he said.

“We always warn against the use of children in conflicts, whether they’re just training or actually being used as part of the resistance against the Israeli occupation,” he stressed.

“It’s as if certain groups want to say, ‘in training children for combat, we’re still resisting’,” he said, referring to reports that extremist Gaza-based groups were being prevented from firing rockets into Israel by Hamas units deployed along the border.

Rocket fire from the besieged territory has dipped significantly since a November ceasefire that ended an eight-day conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Every summer since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the territory sees competition between the Islamist movement’s summer camps and those organized by UNRWA.

But in 2012, a cash-strapped UNRWA was forced to cancel its “summer games” which would attract up to 250,000 children.

The UN agency has from June 15 to July 4 this year reopened its activities, which include football and kite-flying, to a more modest 150,000 children, thanks to a donation from Finland, it said in a statement.

“UNRWA’s Summer Fun Weeks are a much needed break from the harsh reality of the environment and are therapeutic for children living under a crippling blockade and scarred by poverty and violence,” it said.

 dæl wrote:
I did wonder how long before someone tried to justify these actions. I'm sorry but there is no justification for the torture of children, even child soldiers.

 Frazzled wrote:

 dæl wrote:
I did wonder how long before someone tried to justify these actions. I'm sorry but there is no justification for the torture of children, even child soldiers.

Not justifying anything. Just adding a little perspective. The only prudent thing for the US to do is stay the hell out.

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

 dæl wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

Last time I checked jail wasn't preceded by some Kafkaesque military court held in a foreign language while being refused an interpreter, and then, as a child, being threatened with sexual assault, violence and death.

 dæl wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

Last time I checked jail wasn't preceded by some Kafkaesque military court held in a foreign language while being refused an interpreter, and then, as a child, being threatened with sexual assault, violence and death.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

Even so, prisoners should still get some rights whilst in jail, and child suspects should not be subject to that level of abuse. It's almost as though Israel is prepping the next generation of its enemies on purpose.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

At the same time, are they allegedly torturing their adult POWs?

 Frazzled wrote:
What people don't understand is Gitmo is actually open. At any time they can go live in Cuba, but then they'd have to live in Cuba...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
What people don't understand is Gitmo is actually open. At any time they can go live in Cuba, but then they'd have to live in Cuba...

Great weather, cheap food, classic cars...and that's bad, how?

Deep down, Frazz, you've always been a commie at heart!

 CptJake wrote:
I'm a little slow today and seem to have missed it, what are the alleged acts of torture?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Hold the phone. You can't eat whenever you want in jail?

So much for my crime spree.

Last time I checked jail wasn't preceded by some Kafkaesque military court held in a foreign language while being refused an interpreter, and then, as a child, being threatened with sexual assault, violence and death.

If the evidence is true... Again, it just doesn't sit right with me. Israel knows how America feels about children, and certain circumstances of "torture", and I believe that Israel wouldn't jeopardize it's relationship with us for a few kids. Granted our current leader is taking a less supportive stance than any previous president, but everyone knows that he is now on the decline and his way out.

 Ahtman wrote:
I'm no defender of Israeli policies, but this seems a bit off somehow. I believe that if they had found that Israel thought that multiple hellfire missiles was a fair response to someone throwing a rock I could believe that, but I have trouble believing they are just routinely rounding up kids and torturing them.

 Ketara wrote:
Both the the evidence for the report and the motives of the people compiling the report should be be investigated thoroughly. Presuming it holds water, sanctions should then be applied to Israel until the practice ceases.

 Monster Rain wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I'm no defender of Israeli policies, but this seems a bit off somehow. I believe that if they had found that Israel thought that multiple hellfire missiles was a fair response to someone throwing a rock I could believe that, but I have trouble believing they are just routinely rounding up kids and torturing them.

Especially when the article only vaguely hints at what the torture is, and by nature restriction to toilets and food and water are part of being in a detentional facility.

I'd like to know more about this story before jumping wildly to any conclusions.