GAZA UNDER ATTACK

#PRAY FOR PALESTINE

SCORES KILLED AS ISRAELI JETS BOMBARD GAZA

At least 72 people, including many children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip in two days of Israeli air raids, as Israel's army mobilised on the border for a possible ground invasion. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said 550 people had been wounded since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza this week, which it said targeted Palestinians firing rockets into its territory. At least 550 sites have been hit by Israeli jets, including Gaza City, Beit Hanoun and Khan Younis. An Israeli air strike killed seven Palestinian civilians on Thursday, including five children, in the largest death toll from a single attack since the start of the three-day offensive, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Residents and medical officials said an Israeli air strike bombed at least two houses in a densely populated area near Khan Younis while residents were asleep, the Reuters news agency reported. Bodies were pulled out of rubble from three or four homes including neighbouring structures. Another 16 peoplewere also wounded in the attack, the ministry said.Israeli tanks continued to patrol the border of Gaza, after Israel's cabinet mobilised 40,000 reservists.Al Jazeera's John Hendren, reporting from Gaza City, said people are concerned that the next step is a ground invasion."Israel says it has thousands more targets it is willing to strike, which is hard to believe when you're in Gaza City. People are worried about more air strikes and a ground war." UN meeting Hospitals inside Gaza on Wednesday said they were overwhelmed with those injured in the Israeli raids. Egypt opened the Rafah crossings to help evacuate and treat the wounded. Local media in Gaza said that one of the Israeli attacks on Wednesday targeted the house of a commander in the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Casualties figures are unknown. Another blew up the house of Hafez Hamad, a leader of the military wing of Islamic Jihad. He was killed along with at least four women and children, according to neighbours and hospital officials. An 80-year-old woman was killed in an attack on Al-Mughraqa village in southern Gaza, according to reports. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will brief the Security Council at 1400 GMT on Thursday on the escalating Israeli and Palestinian hostilities, which he described as a "troubling and volatile" situation which was "on a knife edge". Rwanda, which is president of the council for July, said there would be a public briefing by Ban and the Israeli and Palestinian UN ambassadors before closed-door consultations. 'Extreme' Israeli government Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, on Wednesday blamed the latest round of violence on the "extreme" Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. He urged Israelis to change their leadership or force their leaders to end their assaults on Gaza. "Netanyahu will take you from disaster to disaster. They will give you nothing but defeat and destruction," he said. "You kill our people. The world is aware - the war has been forced upon us. We have not forced this war." In response to Meshaal's speech, Naftali Bennett, Israel's economy minister and the leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, said: "Meshaal was talking nonsense as usual". "We are going to continue the pressure and we are going to expand our operation," he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv. He said Israel would "haunt Hamas terror group until they stop shooting missiles". On Wednesday, three rockets hit the southern city of Be'er Sheva, a salvo hit Tel Aviv during rush hour and one hit Hadera, about 100km from Gaza, the longest-range strike yet. The Qassam Brigades said it fired M-75s, a locally-made rocket with an 80km range. Five members of Hamas were also killed in a makeshift naval commando attack on a military base in Zikim, near the southern city of Israel. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday night: "We convey to the Security Council in the strongest terms our opposition to this outrageous aggression. "We express the outrage of our people and demand the Security Council acts immediately to hold those responsible." Additional reporting by Gregg Carlstrom in Tel Aviv and Fares Akram in Gaza City.

Source: Al Jazeera

ISRAEL LOCKING UP MORE CHILDREN IN ISOLATION

Ramallah, occupied West Bank - Jamil was only 16 years old when Israeli soldiers raided his Bir al-Basha home near Jenin late last year. It was a few hours before dawn when he was awakened by a hard nudge, blindfolded and handcuffed, then taken away in his pyjamas and house slippers. His ordeal took place in stages: At an Israeli military base, where he was beaten and forbidden from using the bathroom, at a detention centre where he was interrogated without a lawyer or parent present, and finally, when he was placed and held in an isolated cell for 13 days. Like Jamil, an increasing number of Palestinian children are being subject to solitary confinement specifically for interrogation purposes while in Israeli detention, according to Defence for Children International.  "The use of isolation against Palestinian children as an interrogation tool is a growing trend," said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at DCI's Palestine chapter. "This is a violation of children’s rights and the international community must demand justice and accountability." RELATED: Five years on: Gaza's children remain target In a recent report, the Geneva-based group said that of the approximately 100 cases it documented of children held in the Israeli military detention system, 21 percent were in solitary confinement during the interrogation process. The cases recorded in 2013 affected children aged 12 to 17, and the numbers represented a two percent increase from the prior year. DCI said that minors held in solitary confinement spent an average of 10 days in isolation. The longest period of confinement documented in a single case was 29 days in 2012, and 28 days in 2013, the group said. Globally, this measure is often taken to separate juveniles from the adult prisoner population. But in the case of Palestinian children, DCI says, it is being used to either extract confessions or gather intelligence against other individuals. "The use of solitary confinement by Israeli authorities does not appear to be related to any disciplinary, protective, or medical rationale or justification," the report said. This seemed to be the case with Jamil, who was placed in Cell 36, a solitary holding room in Al-Jalameh Prison in Israel. "[The interrogator] ... accused me of throwing stones several times, but I never confessed," Jamil said. "In later rounds of interrogation [however], I confessed to throwing stones even though I did not. I confessed hoping he would get off my back and get me out from the cell." The minor was kept in solitary confinement for 13 days which he describes as "painful". At one point, he was placed in another cell with an older Palestinian man, who later turned out to be an informant. "He asked me to tell him everything," Jamil said. "He showed me a list of people's names and asked me if they threw stones at Israeli cars. I told him that they all did it and I saw them doing it. I did not know he was a snitch." The group wants Israeli authorities to cease this practise and military judges to exclude evidence obtained through coercion by the use of solitary confinement. It is also demanding that the prohibition of isolation of juveniles be enshrined in Israeli law. The Israeli prime minister's spokesperson was unavailable for comment at the time of publication. The Foreign Ministry declined to address the report's findings. DCI had released a comprehensive report two years ago charging that there was a pattern of abuse towards children detained under the Israeli military court system. Back then, an Israeli spokesperson denied that isolation was used as an interrogation technique or as punishment to exert confessions out of minors. The Israel Security Agency said that Palestinian children were given special protection because of their age, and that no one, including minors, was kept in isolation to extract confessions or as a punitive measure. It also said that the children had a right to legal counsel and Red Cross visits.

Source: Al Jazeera

4800 PALESTINIANS IMPRISONED BY ISRAEL: OFFICIAL

The Israeli regime is currently holding captive over 4800 Palestinians, including children and women, according to a Palestinian official.

Israel capture Palestinian teenager in Qusin, Nablus,Northen West Bank. - AGENSI

On Tuesday, Head of the Census Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees Abdul-Nasser Ferwana said that Israel is holding the prisoners in seventeen prisons as well as detention and interrogation centers.

“Right now, we have more than 4800 Palestinians behind bars, more of them have been taken prisoner during the al-Aqsa Intifada”, he said, adding, “They are held in 17 prisons, and detention centers; there are also 17 female detainees still imprisoned, the longest serving is Lina al-Jarbouni; she was taken prisoner 12 years ago, and was sentenced to 17 years.”

The Palestinian official stated that Israeli soldiers have kidnapped and detained more than 10,000 Palestinian children since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, in September 2000.

He added that the Israeli regime has imprisoned about 11034 Palestinians, including 2500 children, over the last three years. He noted that they have been taken prisoner by the Israeli army during ongoing Israeli military invasions and violations.

“The arrests violate International Humanitarian Law”, Ferwana said, adding, “The violent way those arrests are carried out, interrogation, torture, and harsh conditions in prisons… all are serious violations.”

Ferwana further noted that 150 administrative detainees are currently being held in Israeli prisons. He also said that Tel Aviv is holding captive 12 elected legislators.

Administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

The official further said that Israel holds Palestinian prisoners, without charges or trial, under terrible medical conditions, adding that there are 1500 detainees suffering from various diseases, including cancer, and many of the prisoners have completely lost their mobility and various bodily functions.

He noted that as many as 205 Palestinian detainees have died after their arrest because of torture during interrogation, lack of adequate medical treatment, and excessive use of force since 1967.

He stated that dozens of Palestinian prisoners lost their lives shortly after their release due to poor medical condition in Israeli prisons.

IA/PR

source : http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/05/349299/4800-palestinians-imprisoned-by-israel/

ISRAEL’S MISTREATMENT OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN CONTINUES

By Dr. Cesar Chelala

A UNICEF report issued last March, “Children in Israeli Military Detention,” was sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of detained Palestinian children and youths. According to that report, 700 Palestinian children aged 12-17, most of them boys, are arrested and harshly interrogated by the Israeli military, police and security agents every year in the occupied West Bank.

Now, a new UNICEF progress report states that although some progress has been achieved “violations are ongoing” seven months after the original report was released. The progress report states that there were 19 sample cases of abuse of youths between 12 and 17 in the occupied West Bank in the second quarter of 2013.

The information on mistreatment of Palestinian children and youths is the result of several years of information gathering by UN agencies related to grave violations committed against Palestinian children in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This information is regularly reported to the United Nations Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.

Last June, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child confirmed the abuses against Palestinian children, including torture, solitary confinement and threats of death and sexual assault in prisons. “These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers,” stated the committee.

The reported abuses of Palestinian children confirm what the organisation Breaking the Silence, constituted by Israeli soldiers who served in the IDF and work to expose human rights violations, had stated in its report called “Children and Youth, Soldiers Testimonies 2005-2011.” In one of the testimonies, a soldier from the Nahal Brigade with the rank of first sergeant, stated: “On your first arrest mission you’re sure it’s a big deal, and it is actually bullshit. You enter the Abu Sneina (Hebron) neighbourhood and pick up three children. After that whole briefing, you’re there with your bulletproof vest and helmet and stuck with that ridiculous mission of separating women and children. It’s all taken so seriously and then what you end up is a bunch of kids, you blindfold and shackle them and drive them to the police station at Givat Ha’vot. That’s it, it goes on for months and you eventually stop thinking there are any terrorists out there, you stop believing there’s an enemy, it’s always some children and adolescents or some doctor we took out. You never know their names, you never talk with them, they always cry, shit in their pants.”

According to Article 37 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, State Parties shall ensure that “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,”…and “Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and to a prompt decision on any such action.” These provisions have been repeatedly violated by the Israeli authorities.

As UNICEF states, “In addition to Israel’s obligations under international law, the guiding principles relating to the prohibition against torture in Israel are to be found in a 1999 decision of the Supreme Court, which is also legally binding on the Israeli military courts. The Court concluded that a reasonable interrogation is necessarily one free of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and that this prohibition is absolute.”

Ill-treatment of Palestinian minors begins with the arrest itself, which is carried out usually in the middle of the night by heavily armed soldiers, and continues through prosecution and sentencing. Most minors are arrested for throwing stones; however, they suffer physical violence and threats, many are coerced into confessing for acts they didn’t commit and, in addition, many times they don’t have access to a lawyer or family during questioning. According to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 7,000 children aged 12 to 17 years, but some as young as nine, have been arrested, interrogated and detained since 2002.

Israeli government abuses against Palestinian children are not limited to the West Bank. In the past, UNICEF has also reported that one baby in three risks death because of medical shortages in Gaza. Israel’s government had also prohibited the distribution of special food to about 20,000 Gazan children under age five resulting in anaemia, stunted growth and general weakness as a result of malnutrition.

Israel’s government has stated its intention to continue working with UNICEF to address the issue of mistreatment of Palestinian children. However, treatment of children and adolescents under detention as it is carried out even now contravenes Israel’s democratic principles and contributes to the perpetuation of the Middle East conflict and to the search for a just and lasting peace in the region.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

UK RAISES CONCERNS OVER ISRAEL'S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN

Foreign Office minister says he has raised concerns about treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention.

The British government has raised concerns about Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors arrested and interrogated for stone-throwing and other crimes, highlighted in an article in the Guardian.

Alistair Burt, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, urged Israel to address the UK government's concerns when on a visit to the country a fortnight ago.

Burt told the Guardian he had "raised concerns about the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention. I urged the Israeli government to address these concerns."

Burt was also asked in the House of Commons last week about the issue of solitary confinement for Palestinian minors. Labour MP Sandra Osborne called on the government to condemn the practice and demand the release of 106 children detained in the Israeli military prison system.

In response, Burt referred to an earlier statement in which he said the practice of shackling children was wrong. Minors are routinely shackled throughout court hearings in the Israeli military justice system.

Osborne told the Guardian Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors was "unjustified in the context of human rights". She had been appalled and distressed on visits to the Israeli military juvenile court at Ofer, near Jerusalem. "No civilised democracy should treat children in that way," she said.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the state should apply the same protection to Palestinian minors in detention that it allows to Israeli children.

B'Tselem confirmed that descriptions given to the Guardian by Palestinian juveniles of arrest, detention and interrogation under the military justice system were consistent with testimonies it had collected although mostly with over-18s.

"We have also seen long periods of solitary confinement in a small cell, with lights on 24 hours a day, with detainees unable to follow time and disconnected to the rest of the world," said B'Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli. "We have testimonies of detainees cuffed in painful positions while under interrogation and sometimes left for long periods.

"Throughout the military justice process, the rights of suspects are violated."

B'Tselem, she said, took issue with the claim by Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev that detainees alleging mistreatment would have complaints dealt with fairly. "This is disingenuous at best," she said.

A B'Tselem study last year showed that out of more than 700 complaints of abuse by Israeli Security Agency (ISA) interrogators brought between 2001 and 2011, none resulted in a criminal investigation.

The complaints were examined by an official of the ISA. "It is not surprising that in most cases the inspector determines that the complaint is not true," said B'Tselem.

In a few cases, the inspector found abuse had taken place but the file was closed without the state attorney's office ordering a criminal investigation. B'Tselem said this "transmits a message to … the potential complainants that the chances of measures being taken against the persons responsible is zero".

Regev insisted anyone who had a complaint that an Israeli official had acted in an improper fashion should bring the information to the Israeli authorities and civil courts. "It will be thoroughly investigated," he said.

He added: "Minors deserve special attention, special consideration … The test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated, people in jail, and especially so with minors."

B'Tselem said the provisions of Israeli youth law should formally be applied to Palestinian minors. Night-time arrests in military operations should cease; interrogations should be video-taped; minors should be questioned in the presence of a parent or lawyer; they should have their rights clearly read to them; and proper options for remand should be put in place.

Unicef, the UN agency for children, also raised concerns following the Guardian's article. Children had the "right to protection against violence and abuse," it said in a statement. Unicef was "monitoring the arrest and detention of children and is currently in dialogue with the Israeli authorities to improve the protection of child detainees … All children, at all times, must be treated with dignity and respect, in accordance with the convention on the rights of the child."

In the first 11 months of last year, 222 cases of stone-throwers were brought before the military court, according to a letter sent by the Israeli foreign ministry to Lady Scotland, who visited the Ofer court last autumn, and is writing a report on her findings.

The period from indictment to the conclusion of proceedings had dropped to an average of 92.5 days in 2011 from 167 days in 2007, the letter said.

It pointed out that "many crimes carried out by minors in [the West Bank] are of a violent ideological nature and pose a clear and imminent threat to the public … Despite the unique dilemmas in the dealing with minor suspects in [the West Bank], Israel makes significant efforts to provide for just and fair treatment throughout the entire military legal process in accordance with international standards."

Human rights organisations say Israel's treatment of Palestinian minors breaches the international convention on the rights of the child and the fourth Geneva convention.

source : http://www.guardian.co.uk