Palestinian minors detained in Israeli prisons and tried in military courts

[Mr.Espinoza ♔♔♔]

 

The case of Ahed Tamimi became famous internationally.

• The 16-year-old Palestinian teenager was arrested in 2017 for slapping an Israeli soldier.
• The incident appeared in a video that toured the world when the girl was sentenced to eight months in prison.
• But the case of Ahed Tamimi is not unique.

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Every year more than 500 Palestinian children, some of no more than 12 years old, are arrested by Israeli security forces.

Many of them have been tried in military courts for alleged crimes committed in the territories occupied by Israel in the West Bank.

Israel is thought to be the only country that judges minors in this way. And critics say detainees are subjected to extensive abuse.

The BBC spoke with three of these minors, including Ahed Tamimi.

Malak Al-Ghalit - 8 months in prison
Malak, now 16, was arrested in 2017 at a checkpoint in the West Bank for an alleged knife attack against Israeli soldiers.

 

 

"After (the arrest) they took me to a military camp in Jerusalem and they interrogated me there," he tells the BBC.

• "(The officer) yelled at me and told me to sign a paper that was written in Hebrew. He asked me very strange questions."

"I said: 'No, I haven't done anything', but he forced me to sign the paper. The whole day of my arrest they kept me without food or water and then took me to Hasharon prison (in Israel)," he says The young woman

Malak, like many other minors, was tried in the juvenile military court system of Israel, the only country in the world that maintains this type of process.

Israeli military laws are practiced with Palestinian minors in the West Bank because it is a territory under military occupation.

Israel argues that the teenagers it stops are "threats to national security."

Currently more than 200 children under 18 are detained.

One of them is Mahmoud Ahmad Thawabteh, 15, accused of throwing stones.

His father Nabil showed the BBC a document in Hebrew that was handed to him in court and, he was told, contains the list of accusations against the child.

 

"I don't know what he says, I don't know. It's all in Hebrew," Nabil exclaims.

The prison where Mahmoud is being held is located almost an hour from the family home.

The trip to visit it is not easy. It can take up to six hours for the family to cross all checkpoints.

"They register us, they tell us to pass, they tell us to go back, to wait. Then the (metal) detector sounds for no reason. It's a disaster, it's exhausting, a torture."

"It's as if we were also detained," says Nabil.