Photographer Ryuichi Hirokawa’s best shot: The Guardian
Interview by Melissa Denes, The Guardian – 30 Apr 2009
I took this in 2002, at Al-Ram checkpoint on the West Bank. All the checkpoints had been closed by Israeli troops and these women were demonstrating to have them opened, so that food and medical supplies could come through. An hour before, a group of men had been demonstrating, but the soldiers pulled out their batons so the women – who were both Palestinian and Israeli – moved to the front.
On the left is a line of Israeli soldiers; that man at the front, with his hands in his pockets, is a policeman. I was drawn to the young woman standing second from the right, who is holding up her hand in a V-sign. She held that for a long time, at least 30 minutes – until the soldiers began to throw tear gas canisters.
You can see the press at the back. I don’t like to work from such a position of safety. I’ve been taking photographs in Israel and the West Bank since 1967. This one became symbolic for me, and last year I included it in my film Nakba (Catastrophe), which features hundreds of photographs and interviews with Palestinians displaced after 1948.
As a student in Japan, I was very idealistic. I read the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and decided to work on an Israeli kibbutz. One day, I found some bullets in a field nearby and asked where they might have come from. No one knew – then a young Jewish man showed me an old map that had the Palestinian name for the place where we were working.
I began photographing the ruins of Palestinian villages and exhibited them in Jerusalem in 1969, in a show called Security. There was an angry response: people wanted to know whose security I was referring to. But one entry in the visitors’ book, written by a Jewish student, said: “In Israel we only ever hear one side; these pictures show us the other side.” I have been to Palestine 30 to 40 times now, most recently to Gaza in January. This is what I keep trying to show.
EDITOR: Gideon Levy has always been the most thoughtful, challenging and morally founded columnists in Haaretz, and in Israel. He has moved his political positioning much to the left over the last couple of years, and this article is the clearest he has written yet, a condemnation of the cozy self-image of the so-called Israeli left “peace camp”. Timely and accurate.
There has never been an Israeli peace camp: Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
The Israeli peace camp didn’t die. It was never born in the first place. While it’s true that since the summer of 1967, several radical and brave political groups have been working against the occupation – all worthy of recognition – a large, influential peace camp has never existed here.
It’s true that after the Yom Kippur War, after the first Lebanon War and during the giddy days of Oslo (oh, how giddy those days were), citizens took to the streets, generally when the weather was nice and when the best of Israeli music was being performed at rallies, but few people really said anything decisive or courageous, and fewer still were willing to pay a personal price for their activities. After the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, people lit candles in the square and sang Aviv Geffen songs, but this certainly isn’t what one would call a peace camp.
It is also true that the stance advocated by the so-called Matzpen movement immediately after the Six-Day War has now more or less become the Israeli consensus position – but it is mere words, devoid of content. Nothing meaningful has been done so far to put it into practice. One would have expected more, a lot more, from a democratic society in whose backyard such a prolonged and cruel occupation has existed and whose government has primarily invoked the language of fear, threats and violence.
There have been societies in the past in whose name frightful injustice has been committed, but at least within some of them, genuine, angry and determined left-wing protest took place – of the sort that requires personal risk and courage, and which is not limited to action within the cozy consensus. An occupying society whose town square has been empty for years, with the exception of hollow memorial rallies and poorly attended protests, cannot wash its hands of the situation. Neither democracy nor the peace camp can.
If people didn’t take to the streets in large numbers during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, then there isn’t a genuine peace camp. If people don’t flood the streets now – when dangers lie in wait and opportunity is wasted time after time, and democracy sustains blow after blow on a daily basis and there are no longer sufficient resources to properly defend it, and when the right wing controls the political map and settlers amass more and more power – then there is no genuine left wing.
There is nothing like the debate over the future of the Meretz party to demonstrate the sorry state of the left. This comes in the wake of the strange and ridiculous report last week about the party’s poor showing in the last election, and which gives every possible recommendation. Meretz disappeared because the party fell silent; you don’t need a commission to find that out. But even during its relatively better days, Meretz was not a real peace camp. When Meretz applauded Oslo, it deliberately ignored the fact that the champions of the “historic” peace accords never intended to evacuate even a single settlement over the course of the great “breakthrough” that earned its promoters Nobel peace, yes, peace prizes. This camp also overlooked Israel’s violations of the agreements, its illusions of peace.
Above all, however, the problem was rooted in the left’s impossible adherence to Zionism in its historical sense. In precisely the way there cannot be a democratic and Jewish state in one breath, one has to first define what comes before what – there cannot be a left wing committed to the old-fashioned Zionism that built the state but has run its course. This illusory left wing never managed to ultimately understand the Palestinian problem – which was created in 1948, not 1967 – never understanding that it can’t be solved while ignoring the injustice caused from the beginning. A left wing unwilling to dare to deal with 1948 is not a genuine left wing.
The illusory left never understood the most important point: For the Palestinians, consenting to the 1967 borders along with a solution to the refugee problem, including at least the return of a symbolic number of refugees themselves, are painful concessions. They also represent the only just compromise, without which peace will not be established; but there’s no sense in accusing the Palestinians of wasting an opportunity. Such a proposal, even including the “far-reaching” proposals of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, has never been made to them.
Meretz will surely find some kind of organizational arrangement and will again get half a dozen members elected to the Knesset, on a good day maybe even a dozen. This doesn’t mean much, however. The other left-wing groups, both Jewish and Arab, remain excluded. No one has any use for them, no one thinks about including them, and they are too small to have any influence. So let’s call the child by its real name: The Israeli peace camp is still an unborn baby.
Quiet revolution that is freezing Palestinians out of Jerusalem: The Guardian
Evictions and planning decisions on the ground are jeopardising prospects for a two-state Middle East peace deal
In the brochure handed out by the mayor’s office in Jerusalem last week, there were pretty sketches illustrating a development that would turn a poor, crowded area into a park, with streams, restaurants and hotels. It talked of reviving the area’s “ancient glory” and returning the site to “an island of green” just outside the walls of the Old City. True, some houses would have to be demolished but they had been built illegally and anyway the plan was a “win-win” for both the residents and the city, said the mayor, Nir Barkat.
Except that Jerusalem is not any city: it is at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and planning projects like this are political and potentially volatile. The area under the spotlight is Bustan, part of Silwan in east Jerusalem, home to Palestinians and, increasingly, to well-funded, heavily guarded Jewish settlers. Most of the world, including Britain, does not recognise Israeli sovereignty in the east of the city, the part it captured in 1967, occupied and then annexed.
Barkat is a secular mayor with strong rightwing views. When asked about the Palestinians of Bustan, he intervened to say they were “Arab residents”. He highlighted the fact that the 88 Palestinian homes in Bustan were built without planning permission and that a city like New York, say, would never allow unplanned homes to be built in Central Park. But planning here is an instrument of policy, a policy in which Israel maintains a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem and seeks to exert full control over the city it regards as its united, eternal capital. Few Palestinians get planning permission, but most go ahead and build regardless. Only 13% of the east is zoned for Palestinian construction, according to the UN.
Although much attention has been paid to rows over settlements in the occupied West Bank, it is in Jerusalem that the key contest is being fought. The rightwng government insists a united, fully sovereign Jerusalem is a pillar of the Jewish state. But Palestinians say without east Jerusalem as a capital of a Palestinian state there can be no viable two-state peace agreement.
The Bustan plan – on hold now because Israel is conscious of international criticism – is one change among many. In Sheikh Jarrah, also in the east, Palestinian refugees have been evicted from their homes and settlers have moved in. A growing number of Palestinians are losing Israeli residency permits without which they cannot live in the city. New passport stamps issued by Israel at the Jordanian border are preventing some visitors – mostly expatriate Palestinians – from entering Jerusalem. Put together, it represents a significant, if quiet, change on the ground. European diplomats are so worried that in leaked internal reports they warn it is gradually making the prospect of a two-state peace deal “unfeasible”.
Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem: Day 4
I hope you are following those amazingly simple, vibrant and powerful daily reports from Palestine. You can easily get a subscription on YouTube and receive all the links weekly. Highly recommended!
Day 4 (Higher Sound Level). Ashira takes Mohamed Diad, the lead singer in Al Ashekeen Band, and who was born in Syria and never been to Palestine, on a visit to Arafat Moseleum.
Nagham takes us on a tour to the markets in Gaza Strip and the tunnels on the border with Egypt, where goods are conveyed in.
The earlier 3 episodes are available here:
Sleepless Gaza Jerusalem Day 3
Sleepless Gaza Jerusalem Day 2
Sleepless Gaza Jerusalem Day 1
Secret Israeli report: U.S. cozying up to Palestinians: Haaretz
The U.S. administration will not put a lot of effort into the upcoming indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, opting instead to focus on the November Congressional elections, according to an internal Foreign Ministry report that was distributed to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad.
The classified report claims that in the preparatory discussions for the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks the Obama administration adopted positions that are closer to Palestinian demands.
“The recent American statements point to the adoption of wording in line, even if partially and cautiously, with Palestinian demands in regard to the framework and structure of negotiations,” the report stated. “Still, the [U.S.] administration is making sure to avoid commenting on its position on core issues.”
U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel last night for what is expected to be a final series of talks before the official announcement of the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in an indirect format.
The proximity talks are to continue for four months. They will involve Mitchell going between Jerusalem and Ramallah, relaying messages and responses, or, alternatively, talks in either Washington or Europe.
Mitchell met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak last night and is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. Mitchel is slated to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Monday in hopes of announcing the resumption of talks immediately afterward, Monday night.
The Central Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization is expected to meet in Ramallah Sunday to confirm the Palestinians’ return to negotiations.
A senior American official told Haaretz Saturday that the talks are expected to resume within days.
“We told the parties that our goal is to achieve two states for two peoples through negotiations,” the U.S. official said. “If there are obstacles we will try to help to overcome them and to propose our own ideas, and if we think one of the parties is not meeting its obligations we will say so.”
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is due to arrive in Israel Monday afternoon. The Obama administration hopes to be in a position to announce the resumption of talks before his arrival so that his visit can concentrate on U.S. relations with Israel and with the PA rather than on bridging the gap between Israel and the Palestinians.
Biden is expected to present the administration’s broad vision of the peace process and to avoid focusing on the details of the conflict.
The report released recently by the Foreign Ministry’s center for political research, which focuses on strategic foreign policy, is less optimistic about the chances for progress in the next round of peace talks. The document was delivered to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and to Israeli diplomatic missions abroad several days ago.
According to the report Washington is aware of the domestic political problems faced separately by both Netanyahu and Abbas and has decided to concentrate on achieving the limited goal of restarting the negotiations. The peace talks will not be at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda, the report claims.
“In our assessment the administration will focus in the coming year on domestic issues that are expected to determine the results of the Congressional elections,” the report’s authors wrote. “As such, and due to the difficulties to date in achieving significant gains in the peace process we can assume that the administration’s focus on this issue will be limited and will predominantly remain in the hands of Mitchell’s teams.”
According to the report, Washington can be expected to portray the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian talks as a domestic and international achievement, in the hope of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to direct negotiations between the parties on the core issues.
The authors of the report also predict that the administration will avoid taking any position that suggests disagreement with Israel, because of the support that Israel enjoys among both parties in Congress.
Ajami co-director ahead of the Oscars: I don’t represent Israel: Haaretz
Ajami co-director Scandar Copti on Sunday said that he does not represent Israel, hours before his film competes for the best foreign film Oscar at the Academy Awards, Army Radio reported.
“I am not Israel’s national team and do not represent her,” Copti reportedly said. “It is an extremely technical thing and that’s how it works at the Oscars – it says ‘Israel’ because that’s where the money comes from.”
He added that the film, which is co-directed by Copti and Israeli director Yaron Shani, features a mixed cast. “There’s a Palestinian director, an Israeli director, Palestinian actors and Israeli actors. The film technically represents Israel, but I don’t represent Israel,” he said, according to Army Radio.
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Jaffa to denounce what they see as increased police violence.
We are calling out, together, against violence – violence from the police,” said Gabi Abad, head of the Arab Jaffa organization.
“The body that is supposed to protect us is attacking us… We tell the police – we are against violence, especially against the innocent,” he added.
Among the demonstrators were family members of Ajami co-director Copti. His mother, Mary, on Saturday demonstrated outside Jaffa’s police station.
“It’s confusing,” she said, when asked how she felt ahead of the Oscar ceremony. “We’re angry but strong… Perhaps Scandar’s success strengthens us more. If we got as far as we did, and [in view of] the potential of those who participated in the movie – it only shows that we [are entitled to] our rights. No police or racism will intimidate us.”
Mary Copti joined the hundreds demonstrating against “police violence” in Jaffa Saturday because, as she says, her heart is in Ajami.
Scandar Copti’s brother, Jeras, who was arrested last month by police, claimed that the arresting officers used excessive force against him, including spraying pepper gas in his eyes after he was already cuffed and bound. He said he and his brother Tony were trying to prevent police from arresting a number of children in Jaffa who were suspected of hiding drugs. According to the Copti brothers, the children had merely been burying the body of their pet dog.
“We are not leaving Jaffa,” Jeras Copti said, “no matter what they do to us if we stay.”
Islamic conference slams Israel’s Al-Aqsa action: IOA
JEDDAH — The Organisation of the Islamic Conference Saturday accused Israeli police of sacrilege by occupying Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and called for international intervention to “end Israeli aggression.”
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Jeddah-based pan-Islamic body, said in a statement that Friday’s fighting between Muslims and Israeli police, which injured dozens, was “a sacrilegious act of profanation of the holy Islamic site.”
The police action was “a violation of international law and a flagrant attack on the freedom of religion of the nature that could take the region into a war between religions,” he said in the statement.
Ihsanoglu called on the international community and the Quartet on Middle East peace — the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations — to “pay heed to the gravity of the Israeli violations and the threat they pose to the region now and in the future.”
He called for “an international intervention effective at every level to end Israeli aggressions and make Israel respect international law.”
ME anger at Israeli ‘escalations’: BBC
Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protestors over the issue of holy sites have provoked a wave of condemnation in the Arab press for Israel’s behaviour.
On Sunday several Palestinians were arrested after Israeli security forces entered the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem. The incident followed clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron on Friday over Israel’s decision to list two disputed shrines as heritage sites.
The Palestinian press painted Israel’s actions as a deliberate attempt to escalate conflict in the region. Newspapers in the Middle East condemned what was perceived as a concerted effort to oppress Islamic identity and set back the peace process.
In Israel, one editorial acknowledged that the decision to list the disputed shrines may have been a “tactical mistake”, while another commentator attacked the US response to the issue.
EDITORIAL IN PALESTINIAN AL-QUDS
The fresh Israeli aggression against the sanctity of the al-Aqsa mosque, and the attacks on worshippers by the Israeli security apparatus, represent the latest in a series of Israeli escalations over the past few weeks… they show that [Israel] is determined to escalate and even expand the conflict.
AYMAN ABU-NAHIYAH IN PALESTINIAN FILASTIN
The Judaization of Hebron… is a prelude to the Judaization of the al-Aqsa mosque and the rest of Palestine… this will include the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and the seizure of their properties.
TALAL AKWAL IN PALESTINIAN AL-AYYAM
The US silence shows that ongoing attempts to resume negotiations have stalled and that those might have to wait until after a new Palestinian intifadah or even war.
EDITORIAL IN EGYPT’S AL-JUMHURIYAH
Israeli plans to Judaize the al-Aqsa mosque and other occupied Islamic places are being implemented without any respect to religious or man-made laws… these extremely racist practices will not halt… until Arab and Islamic countries have the teeth to enforce international law.
EDITORIAL IN SAUDI AL-JAZIRAH
The Israelis are working incessantly to change everything in Palestine and give it a Jewish aspect in a bid to wipe out Arab and Islamic identity… meanwhile, Arabs and Muslims are preoccupied [with their own affairs] while the Palestinians are preparing to fight each other.
EDITORIAL IN IRAN’S AL-VEFAGH
Israel’s plan to swallow Palestine has reached a peak… its project is to wipe Palestine from the map… an escalation rather than a settlement is looming in the region.
EDITORIAL IN SYRIA’S AL-BA’TH
The Israeli occupation of holy sites and the symbols of Palestinian heritage is part of a comprehensive Israeli war to Judaize the Palestinian areas and eliminate their Arab and Islamic identity.
OFIR HAIVRI IN ISRAEL’S YEDIOT AHARANOT
The [US] State Department spokesman Mark Toner has condemned the inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb in the list of Jewish heritage sites… the State Department did not bother to demand details… the way the matter was dealt with… is not only amateurish but could also have disastrous implications for an explosive region like ours.
EDITORIAL IN ISRAEL’S JERSULALEM POST
The Jewish people’s historic connection to the sites in question does not require cabinet approval to be deemed legitimate… the [national heritage] list could have been left ambiguous… still, if [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu made a tactical mistake, the immediate Palestinian resort to violence was deliberate and inexcusable.
EDITOR: The Kettle Calling the Pot Black
You have to laugh… Barak, who in his years of leading Israel has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace, is now advising Netanyahu on how not to miss an opportunity… This is the guy who has engineered the Gaza Carnage, now talking ‘peace’! Barak has spent the first 18 month of his own premiership NOT meeting with the Palestinians, NOT discussing anything with them, totally ignoring all chances apart from the chance to add more settlements; as we know, it all ended up with the second Intifada. Indeed, he has a lot to offer… In their own way, each Israeli leader did his very best to avoid the danger of peace, and of course, they were successful. A long line of belligerent, irresponsible, historically-challenged war mongers, who spoke peace and waged war.
The only likely result of Barak and Netanyahu combining forces, is the Third Intifada.
Barak to Netanyahu: Don’t miss this chance for peace: Haaretz
Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have to “make some difficult decisions” in order to advance the Middle East peace process, urging the government not to miss out on this chance for a settlement.
The defense minister’s remarks came hours after Netanyahu met with U.S. special Mideast envoy George Mitchell in Jerusalem, and as the Palestine Liberation Organization approved a proposal to launch indirect peace negotiations under U.S. moderation.
“I hope that these discussions will advance the political process with the Palestinians in a manner that will enable a quick resumption of actual negotiations on core issues that will result in an agreement,” said Barak, who met over the weekend with Mitchell.
Advertisement
“This goal has slipped away from us time after time for almost 20 years,” added the defense minister. “Israel’s leaders today have the responsibility to ensure that we don’t miss this chance, and that requires leadership and the intention to make difficult decisions.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would have to make the same decisions on behalf of his own people, said Barak, “and so will Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
PLO okays indirect talks, seeks results in months
The PLO’s executive committee on Sunday approved a proposal allowing the Palestinian president to begin indirect negotiations with Israel through U.S. mediation, effectively ending a 14-month breakdown in communications between the two sides.
Palestinian officials warned, however, that they would walk away if the outlines of a border deal with Israel have not emerged after four months. They also ruled out subsequent direct talks without a complete Israeli
settlement construction freeze.
“This peace process cannot go on forever,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “Now it’s time for decisions.”
Erekat said he did not know when the indirect talks would begin.
Abbas has declared refusal to negotiate directly as long as Israel continues to build in its settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He sought final authorization from the top decision-making body to allow him to resume indirect peace talks with Israel, at the U.S. initiative.
Sunday’s decision by the PLO leadership was expected after the Arab League gave the Palestinians political cover last week by approving the concept of indirect talks.
The announcement was made as the U.S. mediator, George Mitchell, held a four-hour meeting in Jerusalem with Netanyahu. The two will meet again on Monday, after which Mitchell will head off to Ramallah to for talks with Abbas.
“If there is a desire to get to direct talks through a corridor then I think the sooner the better,” Netanyahu, referring to U.S.-mediated “proximity talks”, told reporters at the start of his meeting with Mitchell.
Mitchell said he hoped for a “credible, serious, constructive process” leading to comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
A brief statement issued by Netanyahu’s spokesman after the session said the Israeli leader and Mitchell “had a good conversation … on moving the diplomatic process forward”. The statement did not reveal whether the two had reached an agreement on the tangible resumption of talks, which the United States has offered to mediate.
Both the PLO and the Arab League have expressed skepticism about Israel’s intentions, but said they want to give U.S. mediation a chance.
Renewed talks would mark U.S. President Barack Obama’s first success in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. In coming months, Mitchell is expected to shuttle between Abbas’ headquarters in Ramallah and Netanyahu’s office a half hour away in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians broke off the talks when Israel launched its offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 to stop daily rocket fire from the coastal territory.
Netanyahu has said he prefers direct peace talks, but would accept mediated negotiations.
For more than a year, the Obama administration has been laboring to get both sides negotiating again, disappointed to discover that its plan to fast-track peacemaking would be frustrated by deeply rooted conflicts and domestic politics.
The U.S.-mediated talks are expected to focus on guidelines for discussing the key issues that have divided Israelis and Palestinians for decades: final borders, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees, and a resolution to the rival claims to Jerusalem.
Palestinians: Talks must focus on borders
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a PLO spokesman, said Sunday that the indirect talks should focus on drawing a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu, who leads a hawkish coalition, takes a harder line on territorial concessions than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, with whom Abbas failed to reach an agreement in 2008.
In November, under heavy U.S. pressure, Netanyahu persuaded his Cabinet to authorize an unprecedented 10-month settlement construction slowdown. But Israel continues to build 3,000 apartments that were authorized before, and construction in east Jerusalem has not been restricted.
Netanyahu has also riled Palestinians recently by placing two West Bank
shrines on Israel’s register of national heritage sites and declaring that Israel would insist on retaining a presence in the West Bank valley that borders Jordan under a final peace deal.
In the past, failed talks have touched off years of violence
EDITOR: Who is the enemy of Goliath?
Israel’s enemy includes litle boys throwing stones at tanks. Obviously, they have not read the bible.
You may remember that I reported here few days ago about the disappearance of the boy after an incident in Hebron. The IOF played dumb and could give no details. Now it seems that this terrible enemy was released after only nine days in detention. This is hardly the end of the story, of course. No one throws stones at Goliath without a punishment! One of the niceties of the Israeli legal system, is that children underage are protected by their names kept secret, but the IOF is allowed to keep them for any length of time without juridical process, without Haebeas Corpus or any other legal provision of human rights. By being Palestinians, they have forfeited being human, it seems… An army fighting little children has already lost the war!
Palestinian boy freed from IDF jail without paying bail: Haaretz
By Amira Hass,
An Israel Defense Forces court on Sunday agreed to release from custody a 13-year-old Palestinian boy held for nine days on suspicion of throwing stones at soldiers.
The boy has been held since his first remand hearing, on March 2, when his father was unable to pay the NIS 2,000 the court required for him to be released on bail. He was released on Sunday without paying bail.
An Israel Defense Forces soldier detained the boy, identified by his initials A.M., and his 11-year-old brother in Hebron’s Old City, on the afternoon of February 27. The boys’ father tracked down his younger son and was able to bring him home around 10 P.M. (military law prohibits the detention of minors under the age of 12).
The older brother had been transferred earlier that day to the police station in the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, but his father was prevented from seeing him. Later on he was moved again, this time to Ofer Prison, southwest of Ramallah.
The boys’ mother told the human rights organization B’Tselem that the younger child was “tired and scared, and his pants were wet because he had urinated in them while being held there for several hours.”
Three days later, on March 2, military prosecutor Eran Levy asked Judge Eti Adar to extend the boy’s remand in order to file an indictment.
The court records indicate that A.M. admitted to throwing stones. Unlike civil law, Israeli military law allows authorities to interrogate Palestinian minors at unreasonable hours, such as at night, and without a parent present.
Lea Tsemel, the attorney representing the other inmates at Ofer that day, told Haaretz she was stunned to see “a scrawny redheaded child in the suspects’ cage.” Tsemel gave the boy a balloon (that she happened to buy for her grandchild) in order to remind those present in court of his age.
Lawyers who had been contacted by the boy’s family failed to appear at the hearing. Military law stipulates that only after an indictment is filed can minors be brought before an IDF court for juveniles. Therefore, the procedures followed in extending A.M.’s remand are those intended for adults.
The court minutes show that A.M.’s father pleaded with the judge to release his son, stating that he worked for the municipality repairing roads and earned a monthly salary of only NIS 2,400. The prosecution then changed its position, and instead of asking that the boy’s remand be extended until the filing of an indictment, suggested he be released on NIS-5,000 bail.
The judge set bail at NIS 2,000, a sum the father said he was unable to pay. A ruling on the boy’s remand will be handed down Sunday.
The younger brother was hospitalized Thursday, his father said, after showing signs of psychological trauma. The 11-year-old told B’Tselem that a soldier had called him and his brother over, then one of the soldiers grabbed him by the back of his neck and another grabbed his older brother.
The two brothers were put into a military jeep, he said, and brought to the IDF installation near Beit Romano in the Old City of Hebron.
The boy said he was frightened, and when he asked a soldier to send him home, he was told to “shut up.” He said he received the same response when he asked to use the bathroom.