[Ppnews] Beating and Torturing Children - All in a Day's Work for the IDF

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06172009.html
June 17, 2009


All in a Day's Work for the IDF


Beating and Torturing Children

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

The rights of Palestinian children are routinely violated by Israel's 
security forces, according to a new report that says beatings and 
torture are common. In addition, hundreds of Palestinian minors are 
prosecuted by Israel each year without a proper trial and are denied 
family visits.

The findings by Defence for Children International (DCI) come in the 
wake of revelations from Israeli soldiers and senior commanders that 
it is "normal procedure" in the West Bank to terrorise Palestinian 
civilians, including children.

Col Itai Virob, commander of the Kfir Brigade, disclosed last month 
that to accomplish a mission, "aggressiveness towards every one of 
the residents in the village is common". Questioning included slaps, 
beatings and kickings, he said.

As a result, Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the armed services, was 
forced to appear before the Israeli parliament to disavow the 
behaviour of his soldiers. Beatings were "absolutely prohibited", he 
told legislators.

Col Virob made his remarks during court testimony in defence of two 
soldiers, including his deputy commander, who are accused of beating 
Palestinians in the village of Qaddum, close to Nablus. One told the 
court that "soldiers are educated towards aggression in the IDF [army]".

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga>Col 
Virob appeared to confirm his observation, saying it was policy to 
"disturb the balance" of village life during missions and that the 
vast majority of assaults were "against uninvolved people".

Last week, further disclosures of ill-treatment of Palestinians, some 
as young as 14, were aired on Israeli TV, using material collected by 
dissident soldiers as part of the Breaking the Silence project, which 
highlights army brutality.

Two soldiers serving in the Harub battalion said they had witnessed 
beatings at a school in the West Bank village of Hares, south-west of 
Nablus, in an operation in March to stop stone-throwing. Many of 
those held were not involved, the soldiers said.

During a 12-hour operation that began at 3am, 150 detainees were 
blindfolded and handcuffed from behind, with the nylon restraints so 
tight their hands turned blue. The worst beatings, the soldiers said, 
occurred in the school toilets.

According to one soldier's testimony, a boy of about 15 was given "a 
slap that brought him to the ground". He added that many of his 
comrades "just knee [Palestinians] because it's boring, because you 
stand there 10 hours, you're not doing anything, so they beat people up".

The picture from serving soldiers confirms the findings of DCI, which 
noted that many children were picked up in general sweeps after 
disturbances or during late-night raids of their homes.

Its report includes a selection of testimonies from children it 
represented in 2008 in which they describe Israeli soldiers beating 
them or being tortured by interrogators.

One 10-year-old boy, identified as Ezzat H, described an army search 
of his family home for a gun. He said a soldier slapped and punched 
him repeatedly during two hours of questioning, before another 
soldier pointed a rifle at him: "The rifle barrel was a few 
centimetres away from my face. I was so terrified that I started to 
shiver. He made fun of me."

Another boy, Shadi H, aged 15, said he and his friend were forced to 
undress by soldiers in an orange grove near Tulkarm while the 
soldiers threw stones at them. They were then beaten with rifle butts.

Jameel K, aged 14, described being taken to a military camp where he 
was assaulted and then had a rope tightened around his neck in a mock 
execution.

Yehuda Shaul, of Breaking the Silence, said soldiers treated any 
Palestinian older than 12 or 13 as an adult.

"For the first time a high-ranking soldier [Col Virob] has joined us 
in raising the issue -- even if not intentionally -- that the use of 
physical violence against Palestinians is not exceptional but policy. 
A few years ago no senior officer would have had the guts to say 
this," he said.

The DCI report also highlights the systematic use of torture by 
interrogators from the army and the secret police, the Shin Bet, in 
an attempt to extract confessions from children, often in cases 
involving stone-throwing.

Islam M, aged 12, said he was threatened with having boiling water 
poured on his face if he did not admit throwing stones and was then 
pushed into a thorn bush. Another boy, Abed S, aged 16, said his 
hands and feet were tied to the wall of an interrogation room in the 
shape of a cross for a day and then put in solitary confinement for 15 days.

Last month, the United Nations Committee Against Torture, a panel of 
independent experts, expressed "deep concern" at Israel's treatment 
of Palestinian minors.

According to the DCI report, some 700 children are convicted in 
Israel's military courts each year, with children older than 12 
denied access to lawyers in interrogation.

It adds that interrogators routinely blindfold and handcuff child 
detainees during questioning and use techniques including slaps and 
kicks, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, threats to the child 
and his family, and tying the child up for long periods.

Such practices were banned by Israel's Supreme Court in 1999 but are 
still widely documented by Israeli human rights groups.

DCI says it has been disturbed by reports from several children of a 
special tiny cell, referred to as No 36, at a detention centre near 
Haifa. The cell has no windows or ventilation, its walls are dark and 
a dim light is kept on 24 hours a day.

In 95 per cent of cases, children are convicted on the basis of 
signed confessions written in Hebrew, a language few of them understand.

Once sentenced, the children are held in violation of international 
law in prisons in Israel where most are denied visits from family and 
receive little or no education.

DCI also criticises "a culture of impunity" among the Shin Bet, 
noting that not one of 600 complaints of torture filed against its 
interrogators during the second intifada has led to a criminal investigation.

Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, reported in November that 
soldiers too rarely face disciplinary action over illegal behaviour.

Army data from 2000 to the end of 2007 revealed that the military 
police had indicted soldiers in only 78 of 1,268 investigations. Most 
soldiers received minor sentences.

Academic studies suggest that Israeli soldiers have been routinely 
using violence against Palestinian civilians, including children, for 
many years.

In late 2007 Israelis were shocked by the testimonies collected by 
clinical psychologist Nufar Yishai-Karin from 21 soldiers with whom 
she shared her military service during the early 1990s.

The soldiers told her of incidents in which bystanders were shot or 
assaulted. In one of the most disturbing testimonies, a soldier said 
he had witnessed his commander attacking a four-year-old boy playing 
in the sand in Gaza.

"He broke his hand here at the wrist. Broke his hand at the wrist, 
broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, 
and left ... The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and 
the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

Such revelations have grown in number since the Breaking the Silence 
began drawing attention to the army's mistreatment of Palestinians in 2004.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. 
His latest books are 
"<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745327540/counterpunchmaga>Israel 
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the 
Middle East" (Pluto Press) and 
"<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1848130317/counterpunchmaga>Disappearing 
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His 
website is <http://www.jkcook.net>www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National 
(<http://www.thenational.ae>www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.




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