DCI: "Israeli police systematically violate the rights of West Bank children"

Israeli police systematically violate the rights of West Bank children, a new report says.

Israeli police and military forces systematically arrest, beat, and detain Palestinian children without formally charging them, according to a new report by the advocacy group Defense for Children International (DCI).

The group's semiannual report said that at any given time between January and July 2007, between 382 and 416 Palestinian children were held in Israeli prisons and detention centers. More than half of these received prison sentences of up to a year.

Seventeen year old Sabe' Mouneer Ibrahim Titiy was seized from his home at two in the morning, beaten, and taken in a military jeep to various Israeli detention centers where he was tortured, continuously, for weeks until he signed a confession.

"Interrogation started at 7am," Titiy said, "I was handcuffed and shackled. When I asked for anything like going to the toilet or to drink water, the interrogator replied that I have to tell them everything before they would respond to my requests. The interrogator was screaming at me and told me that I had to confess to everything. He left me in the interrogation room handcuffed … The next morning at about 7am, the interrogator came into my cell to wake me and started to kick me. I was not allowed a shower or a change of clothes."

Sixteen year old Tahani Bin Oudi was shot by Israeli soldiers after running in fear from a checkpoint near Nablus. Israeli soldiers had found a small knife in her bag used for cutting fruit.

Military justice and harsh penalties

Under Military Order 378, a rule that governs the detention of children from the West Bank, a child can be detained and interrogated for up to 90 days without being charged with a crime. Under the same rule, conviction minor offenses can result in lengthy sentences. "Throwing of Objects Including a Rock," for instance, can carry a penalty of 10 to 20 years in prison.

Children under the age of 14, if convicted, can be imprisoned for up to six months. Children under the age of 12 cannot be imprison, but are often arrested and released, their families fined.

The DCI report was based on "approximately 200 cases conducted by DCI Palestine lawyers in the Israeli Military Courts during January to June 2007, and 30 statements taken from Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and interrogation and detention centers."