News at Tuesday’s Child

Child prisoners in Israeli jails, 16 Jan 2010

Nileen Village

Today, Tuesday’s Child travelled to the village of Nileen in the West Bank and met with 7 child prisoners and heard their testimonies. In the last year an estimated 700 children were imprisoned in Israeli prisons in the West Bank and currently 320 children are in jail.  The most common charge is throwing stones. The experience is hugely traumatizing, and sentences range from anything from several weeks to up to 6 months. The most common age is 16 yrs old, an important time for education and academic performance. Children often lose a year of schooling or sometimes drop out altogether. Others are too traumatised after their experience to focus at school to do well. Some lose their spot on sports teams, an important outlet for the stress of day-to-day life for a teenager in Palestine. Many of the children, also have a brother or parent also in jail. Last week, 17 children were arrested from this village alone. The youngest of the former child prisoners we spoke with today, is Mohammed, now 13 yrs old. Mohammed was just 11 yrs old when he was arrested from his home.

Read Mohammed’s story...

Mohammed, Child Prisoner  11 yrs
My name is Mohammed and I live here in the village of Nileen with my family. One night, at 2 a.m. in the morning Israeli soldiers came and entered the house. My mother thought they were coming for my father but they had a warrant for my arrest. They said that I was throwing stones at them during the protest at the wall in the olive grove on the previous Friday. I did not throw any stones.  I listened to the raised voices downstairs and my older brother came in to the bedroom to waken me up and tell me it was me they wanted.  I was already awake and very afraid. There was nowhere for me to go or hide. Then the soldiers came upstairs and dragged me down. I held onto my mother and asked her to help me, begging her not to let them take me, but they dragged me away from my mother who was crying and pleading for mercy. There were 15 soldiers inside the house and one outside and their faces were painted with green and black like they had been rolling in the mud; they looked very dirty. They pulled me out of the house, tied my hands behind my back and put a blindfold over my eyes so I could not see anything. My heart was beating very fast, it was thumping so hard I thought it would come up out of my mouth. They dragged me through the fields. I could not see anything and so kept stumbling and falling on the ground. I was hurting and my legs and hands and knees were all bleeding. When I complained they hit me on the head with their hands.

They walked me to a checkpoint area and they arrested me. The charge was throwing stones. They removed the blindfold and took pictures and then they put the blindfold back on. Then they took me to an ABC geep and drove me to a doctor who examined me, took some blood and told them where they could beat me without it showing on my body. Then they beat me hard. After that, they drove me to the jail in Ofed. The manager of the jail refused to take me, he said I was too young. So they returned me to the jeep and beat me. I was in the jeep for 24 hrs, my whole body was cut and I had no food or water and was not allowed to use the bathroom. It was cold and there was no blanket and I stayed like this in the ABC for 24 hrs. They took me to a military base and held me there for another day.

The next night they drove me back to the jail. There was a different manager and he took me into the jail.  There Was a policeman there called Benjamin and he interrogated me about throwing stones at the soldiers. I told him I did not throw any stones at anyone.  He told me he was going to beat me hard and then he beat me.  Several of them beat me hard with sticks on my back and legs. They told me they were beating me for all the children in the West Bank who throw stones at them. After the beating, they sent me to a section of the prison with other prisoners, all of them were adults. The other prisoners were very kind to me and offered me food.

After 3 days in the prison I was sent to court. I was put in a cell with no bathroom and there was no food or water. I spent a night in the cell and then they took me back to the prison as I did not get to go to court. The following day they took me back to the court again and this time I managed to go to court. The judge said I was throwing stones at the soldiers and that I must pay 5000 shekels to be released. The lawyer reduced this to 3000 shekels.

A week later the soldiers released me from a checkpoint not far from the jail. My father was waiting for me. The following week I went back to school and the media came and took a report for the paper.

For further details please contact Orla Sheehan on 07813 834045 or email info@tuesdayschild.org.uk

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