ISRAELI COPS KIDNAP SIX PALESTINIAN CHILDREN FROM AQSA PLAZAS

Jerusalem, 4 Jumadal Akhir 1436/24 March 2015 (MINA) – The Israeli occupation police Monday afternoon (23/3) kidnapped six Palestinian children from the plazas of Muslims’ Holy al-Aqsa Mosque.

Eye-witnesses said the Israeli occupation cops physically assaulted a group of children playing at al-Aqsa yards, moments before they rounded them up on allegations of stone-hurling, Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Locals identified the apprehended minors as Bashar Najib, Tawfiq Najib, Amir al-Malki, Abd al-Bukri, Ayman Hasheima, and Hussein Awad, all aged between 12 and 15 years old.

Talking during a seminar held by the Ahrar Center for Prisoner Studies and Human Rights, a group of experts branded such violations’ of Palestinian children’s rights an attempt to wipe out the self-generation mechanisms of the Palestinian community.

Titled “The situation of Palestinian children in Israeli jails: traumatic childhood and unapplied laws,” the seminar spoke out against Israel’s mounting abduction campaigns in Occupied Jerusalem particularly in the wake of the murder of the Palestinian child Mohamed Abu Khdheir by Israeli vandals.

Head of the center, Fuad al-Khuffash, estimated the number of Palestinians captured per day between 30 and 50, with 40% of the detainees being minors.

He said Israel’s arrest and torture of Palestinian children in the investigation and post-interrogation phases represents “a flagrant violation of international laws and treaties.”

Legal expert Morad Jadullah said at least 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities since 1967 till early 2015.

“The Israeli occupation has been ruling the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem with a set of laws and military orders issued since 1950, which authorize the apprehension of Palestinian children and their subjugation to harsh punishment,” he maintained.

According to Jadullah, such military rules are barefaced breaches to the Fouth Geneva Convention.

Meanwhile, child Ali Abdullah Sweidan, an ex-prisoner, delivered a sworn affidavit corroborating the psycho-physical torture to which he had been subjected at the Israeli lock-ups, saying the Israeli officers forced him to claim responsibility for alleged indictments and threatened to arrest all of his family members.

Sweidan further raised alarm bells over the pre-planned medical negligence Palestinian children have been made to endure at Israeli penitentiaries.

“We, Palestinian children, only ask for the right to live in dignity and be treated as human beings. That’s all what we long for,” the child added.

Some 300 Palestinian minors are still incarcerated in the Israeli prisons, where they have reportedly been mistreated by the Israeli occupation wardens. (T/P006/P3)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)