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Video Footage: Israeli Soldiers Detain Five-Year-Old Palestinian in Hebron_PNN

Video Footage: Israeli Soldiers Detain Five-Year-Old Palestinian in Hebron_PNN

16 July 2013 in 2013
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B'Tselem, an Israeli Human Rights Organisation released a video capturing Israeli soldiers arresting a 5-year-old Palestinian in Hebron for allegedly throwing a stone at a settler's car in a checkpoint near Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs.

B'Tselem complained to the legal advisor in the West Bank that the IOF acted illegally according to Israeli law by detaining a child under the age of 12.

According to B'Tselem, "the incident occurred at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, when seven soldiers and an officer detained Wadi' Maswadeh. B'Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja'bari, who was present at the scene, recorded the entire incident on video. After local residents who had gathered at the spot tried to intervene, the soldiers put the crying child into a jeep with another Palestinian resident and took him home. When they reached the house, the officer informed Wadi's mother that he intended to hand him over to the Palestinian Police."

"The mother refused to let them take the child before his father, Karam, came home. About half an hour after Wadi' was detained, Karam Maswadeh came home. The officer informed Maswadeh that he was arresting his son in order to hand him over to the Palestinian Police. Meanwhile, Wadi'a had spent the entire time hiding behind a pile of mattresses in the house and crying. The parents made it clear to the officer that the child is five years old, but the officer insisted on taking him to the DCO and threatened them, saying that the army would arrest the father if they did not comply. The soldiers then made Karam and his son leave the house and walk to the army camp on a-Shuhada Street."

Karam Maswadeh told B'Tselem, "When I got home, I saw several soldiers standing at the entrance to my house. An officer came up to me and ordered me to get my son, Wadi'a."

"Before I got home, the soldiers had tried to persuade my wife to hand Wadi'a over, but she had refused to do it until I came back. The officer told me that he was going to arrest Wadi'a and hand him over to the Palestinian Coordination. I asked him, "'Why arrest a five-year-old boy?'"

"A soldier standing next to the officer showed me a stone and claimed that my son had thrown it, and that it had hit the car of a settler who was driving north, near Abed checkpoint. I tried to persuade the officer not to take Wadi'a to the DCO [district coordination office], but he said that if I didn't bring him, I'd be arrested.... I went inside the house and got Wadi'a, who was hiding there. He was crying."

Additional video shot by B'Tselem showed Karem and his son as they walked down Shuhadah Street to the Hashoter checkpoint, where they waited for the Palestinian police. At one point, Karem's hands were tied and he was blindfolded.

According to B'Tselem, the incident lasted for two hours, after which the father and son were handed over to the Palestinian police, who questioned them briefly before releasing them.

B'Tselem director Jessica Montell wrote in the organization's letter to the the West Bank legal advisor, "The footage clearly shows that this was not a mistake made by an individual soldier, but rather conduct that, to our alarm, was considered reasonable by all the military personnel involved, including senior officers."

"It is particularly troubling that none of them apparently thought any part of the incident was problematic: not the fact that they scared a five-year-old boy out of his wits, nor threatening him and his parents to 'hand him over' to the Palestinian police, nor threatening to arrest the father on no legal grounds, nor handcuffing and blindfolding the father in front of his son," she continued.

The IOF condemned B'Tselem for filming this incident, saying that this footage has not revealed the full details of the incident. 

"We are saddened that the B'Tselem organization chooses to film only these kinds of videos and upload them to the internet before fully clarifying the details of the incident with the IOF. This was a child throwing stones on a road in Hebron. An IOF force detained him, handed him over to his parents and then transferred him in an organized manner to the Palestinian Police."

It's worth mentioning that B'Tselem has documented such incidents in which Israel arrested a 4-year-old Palestinians at Asira village near Yitzhar settlement, few weeks ago.

WATCH Video 1

 

WATCH Video 2

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