Rights and Accountability 23 March 2017
Filmed by two residents of the area who volunteer with the human rights group B’Tselem, the footage shows a terrified young boy being dragged around the neighborhood and into a building by a group of armed soldiers.
The boy appears distressed and at times in tears.
According to B’Tselem, Sufian Abu Hita was seized by more than 15 soldiers on 19 March, when the barefoot child went looking for his lost toy.
The Israelis demanded that Sufian point out children who have thrown stones at Kiryat Arba, one of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law.
Kiryat Arba settlers habitually abuse Palestinians in the area.
“I went up to one of the soldiers and asked him to give me back my son,” Amani Abu Hita told B’Tselem. “He refused and said, ‘If you want to get him back, convince him to tell us the names of the children who were throwing stones.’ I tried to explain that we don’t live in the neighborhood and were just visiting my parents.”
“Sufian was shaking with fear. I saw him talk to the soldiers and tell them that he doesn’t know anything, but it didn’t help,” she added.
The soldiers held the boy captive for more than an hour. His ordeal ended only when several women intervened and rescued him from the soldiers’ grip.
A US State Department human rights report released this month notes Israel’s routine abuses and violence against Palestinian children, including subjecting them to military courts and prisons.
According to Defense for Children International – Palestine, the State Department’s annual reports on human rights have routinely included Israel’s ill-treatment of Palestinian children since 2007.
However, the new report omits reference to the slaying of 16-year-old US-citizen Mahmoud Shaalan who was shot to death a year ago at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank.
Defense for Children International notes that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson broke with tradition by not launching the report in an on-camera event that has traditionally been an opportunity to highlight key findings.
The video above offers more stark evidence of how Israel’s occupation targets and terrorizes children.
Tags
- Rex Tillerson
- US State Department
- Kiryat Arba
- Defence for Children International-Palestine Section
- B'Tselem
- children
- Mahmoud Shaalan
- violence against children
- Hebron
Comments
Brave IDF soldiers! Picking
Permalink Omar Mirza replied on
Brave IDF soldiers! Picking on an year old child! With that kind of combat experience, they must be ready for anyone!
The women are the brave ones.
Permalink Anonymous replied on
The women are the brave ones.
Child Abuse by Israelis
Permalink Caitlin Ni Chonaill replied on
These are not men, they are loathsome cowards.
enforcing G-d's will, one child at a time
Permalink tom hall replied on
These are the heroes extolled in American media circles. They're the defenders of civilisation feted at AIPAC conventions. This is the only democracy in the Middle East, Ehud Barak's "villa in the jungle". And that beleaguered, frightened little boy is a terrorist. By the way, the women in the video "give birth to little snakes" according to the Minister for Justice, and deserve to be liquidated.
Seriously, who can view this sort of footage without a sense of outrage?
Bullying of children by heroic IDF thugs
Permalink Captain Colin Smith replied on
I'll make it easy for them. If they are so noble l promise l will feel about them the way they feel about Palestinians. That way l can justify the contempt and revulsion l feel about the "world's most moral army". If their behaviour improves, so does my attitude towards them. I have met some of these callow youths who populate the IDF. They are mostly ignorant, brain-washed about why and how Israel exists.