2 Palestinian children face unclear fate in Israeli jail

2 Palestinian children face unclear fate in Israeli jail

[ 15 Juny 2013 23:26 ]

Baku-APA. Yazeed and Ibrahim Abu Robb, 15-year-old teenagers from Jalboon village east of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, face unclear fate in a prison in Israel, especially after they were barred from finishing their final exams at school, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The parents of the two cousins said two months ago, Israeli army force arrested the boys when they were playing at an open area outside the village, with one of the soldiers shooting Yazeed in the leg.

"The way the two kids were arrested was brutal, mainly as Yazeed was shot in the leg... Now they are imprisoned in an Israeli jail and are charged for attempt to murder," said Sawsan Abu Robb, Yazeed's mother.

The mother was on her way back home from a market when she heard a nearby gunshot. "I thought it is normal to hear Israeli gunshots in the village, but when I arrived home, my neighbor told me that Yazeed was shot and arrested," she recalled, clutching a picture of her child.

"I started to cry, and I ran in the streets of the village trying to find out where my son is," said Sawsan. Her husband, a cancer patient, sat beside her and cried whenever the name of Yazeed was mentioned.

The father said in a low voice, "What did my child do? He earned A+ in the first semester at his class. But why did they ( Israelis) prevent him from finishing the final exams of his second term? Why did they deprive him of finishing school like other children?"

The father has always urged his son to get back home before it gets dark, "because the security situation is dangerous and our village is close to the borders between Israel and the West Bank."

According to witnesses in the village, two months ago, Yazzed and Ibrahim cut barbed wire of the border fence to visit the land of their grandfather, but then Israeli soldiers came and opened fire at them.

Ragheb Abu Dyak, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club Association, revealed that Israeli army attorney has postponed the trial of the two boys for the second time, with the coming hearing in the court set on June 24. The two were charged by the Israeli army for trying to murder Israelis.

"It's real insane, the story of the Israeli army on the two children was unbelievable and illogic. They were playing at an open area which only contains snakes, pigs and wild dogs, and all they want is to reach the land of their grandfather taken by Israel," said Dyak.

A report, conducted by the Labor Movement to Defend Children in the West Bank, said that the number of Palestinian children imprisoned in Israeli jails has grown to 236, adding that they are badly treated by the Israeli army.

An Israeli army spokesman refused the accusations that the Israeli army is torturing Palestinian children in jails, dismissing them as "totally untrue and just a propaganda." The Israeli army's instructions of opening fire "are only in cases when the lives of soldiers are in danger."

"The Israeli army never considers someone who carries a fire bomb and wants to throw it at the soldiers a child or a teenager. The Israeli army doesn't arrest children simply because they are children, but arrest people who put Israeli citizens and Israeli soldiers in danger."

Khaled Quzmar, legal advisor of the Labor Movement to Defend Children, told Xinhua that the Israeli detention of children under the legal age "is a clear violation of a child's rights."

"The Israeli practices of detentions and tortures against the Palestinian children have been going on since the start of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank in 1967. But recently, these practices against children and teenagers have grown," said Quzmar.

According to the legal advisor, children over the age of 12 are taken to trials in Israeli military courts, but children under this age usually spend hours under tough and brutal interrogation and then are released.

Ibrahim's mother, identified as Om Mo'taz, told Xinhua that the arm of her son was broken right after he was detained, adding "I really don't know if he would be able to play music on his piano as he used to do."