The Israeli rights group B’Tselem protested the detention, Wednesday, of 27 Palestinian children suspected of throwing rocks at settlers and soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The young Palestinians were detained in connection with “recent stone-throwing incidents toward the security forces and citizens in the city,†the Israel Defense Forces confirmed in a statement to the Tel Aviv newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. Most were later released, the military press office said, but seven of the young people “have been taken for a police interrogation.â€
Among the Palestinians arrested by the military on Wednesday morning in Hebron, B’Tselem said, were “at least five children eight to 10 years old, with possibly others below the age of criminal responsibility.†The rights group also released video recorded by an international activist that showed some of the children being taken into custody, and the subsequent release of five boys.
Earlier this week, Israel’s military drew attention to the dangers posed by rock-throwing in a blog post headlined “Rocks Can Kill,†that described in detail six cases of Israelis who were killed by stones hurled at them by Palestinians over the past 30 years.
The I.D.F. post concluded: “In 1999, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that damage caused by rocks thrown at a vehicle is considered a hate crime, not a traffic accident. Rock throwing may seem harmless, but rocks can kill. If we ignore rock throwing, we potentially encourage even more severe hate crimes and higher-scale terror attacks.â€
B’Tselem noted in its statement:
The Israeli Youth Law requires that a parent or adult be present during the interrogation of child suspects. The law does not formally apply to Palestinians in the occupied territories, who are subject to Israeli military law, but the military court has recommended that the relevant provisions be taken into account in all dealings with Palestinian children.
Later on Wednesday, B’Tselem’s director, Jessica Montell, replied on Twitter to critics who called the arrests justified.
Israeli security forces are present in large numbers in Hebron to protect several hundred Jewish settlers who moved to the city of nearly 200,000 Palestinians after it was occupied by Israel’s military in 1967. The city is home and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site revered by Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of the founding fathers of both religions. Hebron’s original Jewish community fled in 1929, after 67 Jews were killed during Arab riots against Jewish immigration to British-ruled Palestine.
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