Newsletter - August 2015
Detention figures – According to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 31 July 2015, there were 5,369 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza) held as "security prisoners" in Israeli detention facilities including 153 children. In the case of children there was a 4 per cent decrease in the number compared with the previous month and an annual decrease of 11 per cent compared with 2014. According to the IPS, 48 per cent of Palestinian children and 88 per cent of adults continue to be detained in facilities inside Israel, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. A further 1,922 Palestinians were held in IPS detention as "criminal prisoners" including 30 children. Criminal offences include entering Israel without a permit, most frequently in pursuit of work. More statistics – Briefing Note
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The devastating effects of night raids on Palestinian families (By Salwa Duaibis)
– “Over the years, the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) has collected testimonies from Palestinian women in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza on a whole range of issues. However there is one issue, above all others, that stands out due to the frequency with which it occurs and the devastating impact it has on women, their children and entire communities: night raids conducted by the Israeli military into Palestinian villages and homes, which have been taking place on a nightly basis in the occupied territories for the past 48 years. In a sample of 100 instances of night raids conducted since 2014, the one common thread mentioned by the women who provided testimonies to WCLAC was a sense of terror.”
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Testimony – On 26 July 2015, a 16-year-old youth from Beit Ummar was detained by Israeli soldiers at the military watchtower at the entrance to his village. The youth reports no clashes taking place at the time. He reports being pushed to the ground, dragged and beaten. He was then painfully hand tied with a single plastic tie contrary to army regulations and blindfolded. He was put in a military jeep and made to sit on the metal floor where he reports being slapped. He was taken to the settlement of Kiryat Arba and left outside on the ground for two hours before being transferred to Etzion settlement. At no time was he informed why he was detained and he was not questioned. He was released 26 hours later without charge. This detention is unlikely to be recorded in any published official statistics.
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More Members of Congress raise child detention concerns with John Kerry - In
July, four more Members of Congress added their voices to the 19 Members who wrote to Secretary of State, John Kerry in
June, raising concerns about the treatment of children held in Israeli military detention. In the most recent correspondence, Members Jan Schakowsky, John Yarmuth, Steve Cohen and David E. Price stated that: “We are concerned about troubling reports of widespread mistreatment of Palestinian children in Israeli custody, as detailed by a February 2013 UNICEF report titled 'Children in Israeli Military Detention’. This report describes numerous instances of young people suffering mistreatment, and we believe these practices are unacceptable”.
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Haaretz: A picture of a headlock that’s worth a thousand words – “No amount of PR and media management will make the occupation of another nation look good, regardless of whether you think this is all their fault and it’s not an occupation because, as Naftali Bennett says, a nation cannot be an occupier in its own land. If we’re not occupying territory, then we sure as hell are occupying another people, and at the end of the day Israel is doing a bad job of it because deep down the majority of Israelis know it’s wrong. They just haven’t found a way to get out of the headlock which makes them hope that we can just continue chucking the IDF at the problem and somehow, one day, it will go away.”
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