Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/ RAMALLAH: Israel has been severely condemned for its use of night raids against Palestinians especially children in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
HaMoked, the Israeli Human Rights organization has said that security forces of Israel arrest hundreds of children a year in what it said planned raids. It said such raids cause trauma for all the people involved.
In “On Flimsy Grounds: Israel’s Pervasive Night Arrests of Palestinian Children,” which was published on January 16, the Israeli Human Rights group commented that the practice was quite often a first recourse, even when a child was detained only for a short time and later released without charge. In 125 cases it examined in 2022, the group found that not a single Palestinian family received summons before Israeli forces stormed their houses.
The group further said that Israel’s refusal to reduce the use of the tactic suggests the country was purposefully using it to intimidate the Palestinians. The latest allegations against the Israeli forces came as the Palestinian Health Ministry said that a 14 years old Omar Lotfi Khumour was shot in the head and killed by the Israeli soldiers in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem on Monday .
A large number of Palestinians gathered outside the hospital where the teenager was taken to, chanting slogans against Israeli forces. The latest death raised the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since the start of 2023 to 14, including four children.
Raids constitute violation of international obligations
HaMoked’s report based on the information from as many as 294 families who contacted the Group to help locate their children after their detention. Of these, 125 families were concerned with the operations in the middle of the night, according to the Group which also believes that Israel’s conduct toward Palestinian children, wanted for interrogation, constitutes a serious violation of its international obligations.
In a High Court petition in year 2021, the Group had asked the Israeli military to introduce a procedure for summoning suspected minors before their planned arrest. the Israeli Human Rights organization has appealed to reassert its challenge. The hearing is scheduled in March this year.
The research by the Israeli Human Rights organization suggests that night arrests are used against children suspected of even minor offenses. The HR organisation said that the vast majority of cases it reviewed were back home within weeks of arrest, most with no charges filed.
Executive director of HaMoked, Jessica Montell told Arab News that night arrests should be the last option, and Israel should exploit all other options before reaching the point of a large number of soldiers bounding on a family house in the middle of the night.
Ayed Abu Qtaish, director of the Accountability Programme at Defence for Children International, told Arab News that it was clear that the Israeli forces were ignoring previous court rulings on the unannounced arrests.
He also said that most of the arrests happened at night while the target children were asleep, amid violent storming of homes by heavily armed forces. The Israeli forces got them wake up and took them to interrogation centers, which caused psychological trauma.
