Former Israeli soldiers disclose routine mistreatment of Palestinian children

Booklet of testimonies of former Israeli soldiers describes beatings, intimidation and humiliation of children

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
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guardian.co.uk,

Sunday 26 August 2012 10.43 BST
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More
than 30 former Israeli soldiers have disclosed their experiences of the
treatment of Palestinian children during military operations and
arrests, pointing to a pattern of abuse.A booklet of testimonies, published by Breaking the Silence,
an organisation of former Israeli soldiers dedicated to publicising the
day-to-day actions of the army in the occupied territories, contains
descriptions of beatings, intimidation, humiliation, verbal abuse,
night-time arrests and injury. Most of the children had been suspected
of stone-throwing.
The witness statements were gathered to show
the "common reality" of acts of violence by soldiers towards
Palestinians, including children, in the West Bank, said Yehuda Shaul of
Breaking the Silence. "Sadly enough this is the moral consequence of
prolonged occupation of the Palestinian people," he said.One
former soldier describes serving in Hebron in 2010: "You never know
their names, you never talk with them, they always cry, shit in their
pants … There are those annoying moments when you're on an arrest
mission, and there's no room in the police station, so you just take the
kid back with you, blindfold him, put him in a room and wait for the
police to come and pick him up in the morning. He sits there like a dog
…"Children frequently soiled themselves, according to the
testimonies. "I remember hearing him shitting his pants … I also
remember some other time when someone pissed in his pants. I just became
so indifferent to it, I couldn't care less. I heard him do it, I
witnessed his embarrassment. I also smelled it. But I didn't care," said
another.
Another soldier describes an incident in Qalqiliya in
2007 in which a boy was arrested for throwing stones. "At the end of the
day, something has to make these kids stop throwing stones on the road
because they can kill," he said."That specific kid who actually
lay there on the ground, begging for his life, was actually nine years
oldI mean, a kid has to beg for his life? A loaded gun is pointed at him
and he has to plead for mercy? This is something that scars him for
life. But I think if we hadn't entered the village at that point, then
stones would be thrown the next day and perhaps the next time someone
would be wounded or killed as a result."Some of the statements
illustrate the disjunction between the Israeli military and
Palestinians. One soldier said: "You put up a checkpoint out of boredom,
sit there for a few hours and then continue on. Once I saw kids
passing, and one of the guys, a reservist who spoke Arabic, wanted to
ask them what they study. He didn't mean it in any bad way. Then I saw
how the kid nearly peed his pants as the guy tried to kid with him, how
the two worlds are simply disconnected. The guy was kidding and the kid
was scared to death."Most of the soldiers have given testimonies
anonymously.
One, who spoke to the Guardian, said he had been given no
guidance during his training for military service on how to deal with
minors. He said children were sometimes arrested and interrogated, not
because they were suspected of an offence, but to try to elicit
information about older family members or neighbours.He had given
a witness statement to Breaking the Silence because "I thought that
people who don't see this on an everyday basis should know what's going
on." He said many Israelis were unwilling to acknowledge the reality of
the military occupation in the West Bank. "It's very easy [for the
Israeli public] to be completely detached. It's a hard thing to handle –
stuff like that being done in your name."According to Gerard
Horton of Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI) the
testimonies confirm a pattern of behaviour uncovered by his
organisation's research into the treatment of Palestinian children by
the Israeli security forces.DCI and other human rights
organisations say Palestinian children are routinely arrested at night,
handcuffed, blindfolded, mistreated and denied access to their parents
or a lawyer."For years credible reports of human rights abuses
against children living under Israeli military occupation have emerged,"
he said. "These latest testimonies from young soldiers given the task
of enforcing the occupation provide further evidence of its deeply
corrosive effects on all. The testimonies lay bare the day-to-day
reality of the occupation. These are not isolated incidents or a
question of 'a few bad apples'. This is the natural and foreseeable
consequence of government policy."
A spokesman for the Israeli
Defence Forces said that Breaking the Silence had declined to provide
the IDF with testimonies ahead of publication so they could be verified
and investigated.He said its true intention was "to generate
negative publicity regarding the IDF and its soldiers. The IDF has in
the past, and continues to, call upon the organisation to immediately
convey complaints or suspicions of improper conduct to the relevant
authorities. In line with the IDF's ethical commitments, any such
incidents will be thoroughly investigated."http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/26/israeli-soldiers-mistreatment-palestinian-children?newsfeed=true