UN slams Israel for harassing Palestinian kids

Gaza,(Alresalah.ps)--The UN has criticized Israeli violence against Palestinian children, urging the international community to scale up its protective measures for minors living under Israeli occupation.

Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Thursday that ''settlers' violence and vandalism and night time raids and detentions by Israeli occupation forces, house demolitions, threatened expulsions, and a host of other practices'', have deprived Palestinian children of safety and a sense of security.

He also said that long-term Israeli occupation has alarming effects on children's health and well-being.

''Prolonged occupation deforms the development of children through pervasive deprivations affecting health, education, and overall security,'' Falk told the General Assembly's human rights committee.

In his report, Falk also expressed extreme concerns about the violence against Palestinian children arrested by Israeli military, urging Tel Aviv to adopt guidelines in line with humanitarian law for the detained children.

''The arrest procedures documented by UN agencies and reliable human rights organizations include arrests in the middle of the night, removal of child from parents for questioning, abusive treatment at detention and conviction procedures that appear to preclude findings of not guilty," he said.

Falk described an incident in which a three-year old girl was forced out of her home at 3 a.m. and threatened at gunpoint to reveal her brother's whereabouts.

''She was told she would be shot and her family home destroyed unless she revealed the whereabouts of her brother,'' said Falk, adding that ''and now, her mother explained, she can't sleep through the night and bedwets.

According to Falk, the number of the Palestinian children arrested and prosecuted by Israeli authorities has risen in the past four years and most them were arrested over allegations of stone-throwing at Jewish settlers or Israeli soldiers.

He also criticized Israeli authorities for their failure to prevent and punish settler violence against Palestinian children, stressing that many Palestinian kids have stopped attending school because of frequent settler harassment.

The UN investigator for the Palestinian territories also touched on the situation of Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip.

Falk said in Gaza, children are affected by ''traumatizing periodic violent incursions and sonic booms resulting from over-flights, as well as the still unrepaired destruction of refugee camps, residential communities, and public buildings by Israeli forces.

There was no immediate response from Israel to Falk's report.

Falk has previously angered Tel Aviv by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and accusing it of crimes against humanity because of its treatment of the Palestinians. Falk is currently barred from visiting the Palestinian territories, a situation he described as a "disappointment" that made it difficult for him to do his job

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Palestinian Kidnapped, others wounded by Israeli fire In Bilin

Gaza,(Alresalah.ps)—Israeli occupation soldiers attacked the weekly nonviolent protest against the Israeli Annexation Wall and settlements in Bil'in village near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil'in reported that soldiers kidnapped the 30-year-old Palestinian citizen Ashraf Ibrahim.

The Committee added that dozens of locals along with Israeli and international peace activists joined the protest .

The protest started after local residents conducted Friday prayers at the village's mosque, then headed towards Palestinian orchards that the residents managed to liberate after a lengthy legal battle at the Israeli High Court that eventually ordered the army to reroute a section of the wall.

The protesters carried Palestinian and Libyan flags, pictures of Palestinian detainees imprisoned by Israel, and chanted against the occupation and the illegal Annexation Wall.

Upon arriving to the Abu Lemon Natural reserve, soldiers, stationed on the other side of the Annexation Wall started firing dozens of gas-bombs and rubber-coated metal bullets; dozens of protesters were treated for the effects of tear-gas-inhalation.

“The soldiers then pursued the demonstrators through the olive orchards, and kidnapped Bil'in citizen Ashraf Abu Rahma who was standing peacefully with his flag”, the committee said.

Gas bombs fired by the army also caused fire to a number of olive and oak trees

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Israeli forces fire into air by funeral procession, 4 injured

JENIN (Ma’an) -- Four people were injured by fragments of Israeli ammunition after troops fired into the air while a funeral procession passed through a gate in the separation wall in the northern West Bank on Saturday.
Mourners from Dhaher al-Malih, a Palestinian village cut off from the West Bank behind Israel's separation wall, tried to pass through a gate to bury Fathi al-Khatib in a cemetery near Tura, in the Palestinian West Bank.
The party had permissions, a Ma'an correspondent said, but when they refused an order from Israeli forces to pass through the separation wall checkpoint one-by-one, troops fired into the air.
Four men were injured by shards of ammunition, including three sons of the deceased man.
Abdullah, Muhammad, and Mustapha al-Khatib, as well as Ahmad Qabha, suffered light injuries and received medical attention on the scene, a Ma'an correspondent said.
An Israeli army spokeswomen said the group arrived "four hours ahead of their scheduled crossing time and believed they were barred from crossing."
"They approached the soldiers in a manner that made them nervous so in line with army protocol the soldiers fired in the air, lightly injuring two Palestinians, who did not need treatment," after which the party crossed into the West Bank, she said.

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Israeli police detain 14 at prison protest

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli police detained 14 Palestinian citizens of Israel on Thursday during a demonstration at Israel's Hasharon prison calling for the release of all Palestinian detainees, a human rights organization said.
Around 40 Palestinian-Israelis gathered to wave Palestinian flags and demand the release of prisoners that were not part of an exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, the head of Israel-based human rights group Huriyat Muhammad Kananeh told Ma'an.
Israel released 477 prisoners, including 27 women, in return for Hamas handing over captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Tuesday, and 550 additional prisoners will be released in two months under the swap deal.
Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said he could only confirm 12 were detained at the scene.
He told Ma'an the protest was illegal as it lacked coordination with authorities, and that protesters called for the kidnap of more soldiers and attacked a police officer.
Kananeh said police dispersed the protest by force, adding that three women were among those detained.
Demonstrators were calling for the release of the nine women still in Israeli jails, he said.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Thursday that Egypt has assured the movement that the remaining female prisoners will be released "in the coming days," as part of the swap deal.

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Israel stops wife of freed prisoner at Allenby

NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces have denied the wife of a released prisoner who was exiled to Qatar permission to cross the Allenby Bridge to ahead of her journey to meet her husband, a rights group said.
Ahmad Al-Bitawi, a researcher at the international solidarity foundation for human rights, said Abdul Hakim Aziz Hanini's wife tried to travel to Jordan on her way to Qatar through the bridge but the guards refused.
The wife, who was not otherwise identified, said she was with Hanini's parents and her three children, who were allowed to cross the bridge. She added that her husband was detained in 1993.

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4 Palestinians seized in Beit Ummar village

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained four Palestinians Friday night from Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, said Muhammad Ayyad Awad, the spokesman of the popular committee in the village.
Awad told Ma'an that soldiers stopped a group of Palestinians near Beit Ein settlement and detained Salim Muhammad Adi, 40, Raed Muhammad Mufleh Adi, 35, and his two sons Mufleh,18, and Jamal, 15.
The mayor of Beit Ummar arrived at the area, Awad added, and demanded the forces to release them but the Israeli forces announced the area had been declared a closed military zone.

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Parliamentarians Call on Israel to Release Lawmakers

BERN, (WAFA) - The Governing Council of the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) condemned Israel’s incarceration of 21 Palestinian legislators and demanded their immediate release, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.

IPU’s human rights committee issued a resolution following its 125th assembly in the Swiss capital, Bern, in which it expressed deep regret that the prisoners’ exchange deal between Israel and Hamas did not include release of all Palestinian lawmakers, mainly Fatah’s Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Governing Council, which adopted the human rights committee resolution, stressed that incarcerating Barghouti and Sa’adat is a clear violation of international law. It said the Israeli courts that deal with matters that have to do with Palestinians do not meet international justice standards.

The IPU called on Israel to improve the detention conditions of all jailed lawmakers, provide them with medical care and end Sa’adat’s long-term solitary confinement, which the IPU said “amounts to torture.”

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UN official urges ban on solitary confinement

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- Governments should ban solitary confinement for juveniles and for people with mental disabilities, a special UN envoy said.
The UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez told a UN General Assembly panel that solitary confinement "is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the penitentiary system."
He said all countries should move to end this practice for prisoners except in extreme circumstances.
"Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole... whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique," he said.
He also said indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should be ended, citing studies that have established that lasting mental damage is caused after a few days of isolation.
"Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles," he said.
Mendez said the practice should be used only in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, adding that if it is used then "procedural safeguards must be followed."
He said these circumstances could include the protection of inmates in cases where they are gay, lesbian or bisexual or threatened by prison gangs.

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Israeli forces detain 4 men in southern West Bank

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained four Palestinians in the southern West Bank overnight Tuesday, witnesses and the army said.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers detained two men from Halhul north of Hebron after rocks were thrown at a bus carrying Israelis.
The military official said one man was detained south of Hebron after forces found 50 rounds of ammunition at his home.
Another man was detained in Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, he said.
Locals in Beit Ummar said troops ransacked several homes in the town and detained Ahmad Khader Abu Hashem, 44, after confiscating his computers.
Soldiers searched a number of homes in Yatta, south of Hebron, witnesses said.

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Unicef appeals Israel to release Palestinian minors

NEW YORK - The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed to the Israel military to ensure the release of 164 Palestinian prisoners detained as minors, mostly on charges of throwing stones at Israeli authorities.

The appeal was made as the minors were not included in a list of the first round 477 Palestinian prisoners who were released in exchange for one Israel soldier freed by Hamas after five years of captivity through a prison swap brokered by the Egyptian government. It remains unclear whether the minors will be included in a second round of an additional 550 Palestinian prisoners due to be released in the coming months, UNICEF officials were quoted as saying by The Washington Post.

“As stated in the convention on the rights of the child, the detention of children should be used only as a measure of last resort for the shortest appropriate period of time,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF’s Special Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “UNICEF calls on the Israeli government to release Palestinian child detainees so that they can be reunited with their families.”

Israel’s UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, reacted sharply to the UN agencies appeal, in a statement published by the Post that “this press release demonstrates UNICEF’s clear bias and double-standards when it comes to Israel. Its timing is mind-boggling.” Prosor said that while Israel is willing to discuss the concerns of any humanitarian agency UNICEF “should use its time and resource to focus on real violators of children’s rights in the Middle East.”

“Gilad Shalit (the Israeli prisoners) just lost more than five years of his youth as a hostage. Why hasn’t UNICEF condemned Hamas?” Prosor continued. “Where is its condemnation of the missiles that continue to rain down on Israeli kindergartens and school buses? Where is its outrage at Hamas’ cynical use of children as suicide bombers and human shields? Where is its condemnation of the hate that continues to be spread in Palestinian classrooms and textbooks?”

Israel’s detention of minors has been a sore point for the UN children’s agencies and other children’s rights groups, who maintain that children should not be tried by military courts and that governments should only jail minors under the most extreme circumstances.

“Military tribunals are not required to treat children’s best interests as their primary concern, and, therefore, are not an appropriate forum for hearing cases against children,” according to a September report by the UN secretary general special representative for children and armed conflict, Radikha Coomaraswamy.

“Seven thousand Palestinian children have been detained, interrogated and prosecuted and imprisoned in the Israeli military system over the past ten years,” Catherine Weibel, a spokeswoman for UNICEF told the Post.

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