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Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tamara Nassar-29 January 2018Israel has sentenced two of the youngest Palestinian children in military custody to months in prison.
Abdel Raouf al-Bilawi, 13, from Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank
city of Bethlehem, was sentenced to four months for throwing stones at
occupation forces, the most common charge leveled against Palestinian
children in Israeli military courts, according to prisoners rights
group Samidoun.
Al-Bilawi was detained by occupation forces in December and his trial was postponed seven times, until he was sentenced on 22 January. He was also fined $100.
Israeli occupation forces have a policy of deliberately maiming and disabling Palestinian youths who resist their frequent invasions of Dheisheh refugee camp. Many others are arrested.
Al-Bilawi is currently thought to be the youngest Palestinian prisoner held by Israel, according to Shehab News Agency.
In this video, his mother says that Israel does not see her son as a child and treats him like a grown man.
#شاهد.. الطفل عبدالرؤوف البلعاوي من مخيم الدهيشة في بيت لحم، أصغر أسير في معتقلات الاحتلال .. ماذا قالت عائلته؟ pic.twitter.com/zNS5W4Jipz— Pal.Info.Center (@PalinfoAr) 9 January 2018
#شاهد.. الطفل عبدالرؤوف البلعاوي من مخيم الدهيشة في بيت لحم، أصغر أسير في معتقلات الاحتلال .. ماذا قالت عائلته؟
“They are not at all taking into consideration that he’s a child.”
Al-Bilawi was interrogated for hours, shackled and verbally abused until
he confessed under pressure, his family told local media.
His older brother Ala al-Bilawi has been jailed by Israel for the last six months.
Kangaroo courts
“Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the
world that systematically prosecutes an estimated 500 to 700 children
each year in military courts lacking fundamental fair trial rights,” according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.
Israel’s military kangaroo courts have a near-100 percent conviction rate for Palestinians.
There are currently about 350 Palestinian children in Israeli jails.
Youngest female prisoner
Razan Abu Sal, 13, was also sentenced on 16 January to four months in prison and a fine of approximately $700, also allegedly for throwing stones.
Razan, from al-Arroub refugee camp in Hebron, is the youngest Palestinian female prisoner held by Israel.
She was arrested with her sister Roa on 13 January in Hebron. Her sister’s case was delayed by the military court.
Palestinian teenager Muhammad Bilal Tamimi was
brought before the Israeli military court on 28 January, but no
decision was made to release him from detention, which is in its third
week.
His mother, Manal Tamimi, wrote about Muhammad’s condition in a Facebook post. This was the first time his parents were able to see him since he was arrested.
“[He] looks very tired, his face turned to yellow and he lost around
seven kilos or more,” she wrote. “He didn’t have enough food or sleep
during the past 17 days and he went through so many interrogation
sessions days and nights.”
Muhammad, 19, was taken prisoner during a night raid on the village of Nabi Saleh on 11 January.
He is a relative of Palestinian child prisoner Ahed Tamimi.
Seized while getting pizza
Abdul Khalik Burnat, 17, from the Palestinian village of Bilin, was also brought before the Ofer military court on 28 January after some 50 days in prison.
His father Iyad Burnat called it “a long day of deliberate humiliations and insults.”
Writing on Facebook,
Iyad described: “A court filled with soldiers wearing military uniforms
and a child in a cage, his feet in chains, wearing a brown uniform and a
broad smile. A smile that says, I am strong!”
Like with so many other children, occupation forces accuse Abdul Khalik of throwing stones at the army or its fortifications.
His father Iyad is a prominent advocate of unarmed resistance in Bilin, who featured in the award-winning documentary 5 Broken Cameras.
Abdul Khalik was “kidnapped, beaten and detained on the night of 10
December while getting pizza along with his friends Hamzah Al-Khatib and
Malik Rahdi,” according to Samidoun.
A year ago, Abdul Khalik was shot in the head with a rubber-coated
bullet. Israeli forces also previously detained him in a night raid in
March 2017, while he was under treatment for his injuries, Samidoun
added.
Abdul Khalik’s next hearing was scheduled for 11 February.
Medical neglect
On 25 January, Israel’s high court denied the appeal of a woman with severe burns.
Israa Jaabis, 32, appealed her
11-year sentence citing her “inability to perform essential functions
behind bars and the lack of adequate medical treatment provided to
her,” according to Samidoun.
Sixty percent of her body is covered in burns and she has lost eight
fingers. Jaabis needs multiple surgeries, suffers intense pain and
cannot care for herself.
Jaabis, from occupied East Jerusalem, sustained severe burns and
other injuries after a cooking gas canister she was transporting caused
a fire in her car in October 2015. She was then accused of attempting
to detonate the car when she was hundreds of meters from an Israeli
checkpoint.
“The situation was treated as a ‘terror attack’ rather than a medical
emergency by the occupation forces on the scene,” Samidoun said.
Her family says Jaabis was moving to a new apartment in East Jerusalem
and had been transferring furniture for days, including the gas canister
when it exploded.
Jaabis had reportedly been told that she would lose her Jerusalem residency if she did not move back to the city.
She is one of 34 Palestinian women, including eight girls, currently being held in HaSharon prison, and one of almost 60 Palestinian women held by Israel.
Death from cancer
Palestinian prisoner Hussein Husni Atallah, 57, died of cancer on 20 January, after spending more than 20 years behind Israeli bars.
Atallah’s son, Muhammad, told the Ma’an News Agency that the family
learned of his death from the Red Cross after a severe deterioration in
his health.
An Israel court denied repeated requests from
his lawyers to release him, despite medical reports from the Red Cross
and the prison doctor attesting to the severity of his illness.
After losing consciousness, Atallah was reportedly transferred from Ramle prison to Israel’s Asaf Harofeh hospital.
The Palestinian Authority’s prisoners commission and the Palestinian
Prisoners Club condemned Israel’s refusal to allow Atallah to spend his
final days with his family.
Meanwhile, Ayoub al-Asa, 33, from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, has been on hunger strike for approximately 20 days.
Israel transferred him from solitary confinement in Ofer prison to solitary confinement in the Naqab prison on 27 January in retaliation for his fast.
Al-Asa is protesting the extension of his detention without charge or trial since he was arrested in June 2017.
