1. Introduction: Israel’s Treatment of Palestinian Children

On 16 November 2021, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) raided the house of minor Jihad Yasin by night, seeking to arrest and detain him without any arrest warrant. He was held incommunicado until his hearing before an Israeli military court where he was released upon the payment of a 2,000-shekel financial bail. 

Children have long been the victims of Israel’s protracted apartheid, colonization and military occupation of Palestine. Not only are they indirectly affected by the multilayered system of systemic human rights violations perpetrated by Israel to their families, their communities and the Palestinian people, but they are also the primary targets of Israel’s policies and practices, who operates with complete disregard for the special protection afforded to them under international law. The life of a Palestinian child is often punctuated by violence, insecurity, trauma and humiliation that extends until adult life.[1] Such treatments include, but are not restricted to, arrest, detention, imprisonment, physical assault, in addition to house demolitions and restrictions on freedom of movement that deprive them of their fundamental rights including the right to education.[2] As of 7 November 2021, 160 Palestinian children are detained in the Israeli military prison system,[3] and 12,000 Palestinian children have been detained over the past 21 years.[4] Some 700 Palestinian children are arrested, interrogated, detained and prosecuted through Israeli courts each year for charges as petty as throwing stones, which is punishable by a 20-year sentence.[5]

This weekly focus sheds light on the arbitrary arrest, detention and court hearing of minor Jihad Yasin as being symptomatic of Israel’s systematic and oppressive policies and practices against children, in violation of the legal protection allotted to children under international law, and further places these violations within the framework of Israel’s apartheid regime.

2. Israel’s Illegal Settlement Modi’in Illit on Bil’in Village Lands

Palestinians in Bil’in and the Yasin family in particular have been subjected to unlawful acts of land appropriation for the creation of Israel’s illegal settlement city, Modi’in Illit. The settlement which towers above Bil’in village is surrounded and segregated from the community by the Annexation Wall, condemned by the International Court of Justice as creating conditions on the ground that may well become a fait accompli de facto annexation. For years, peaceful demonstrations have been held every Friday in Bil’in and have been suppressed by IOF soldiers employing unnecessary and excessive use of force, and at times lethal force. In May 2021, for example the IOF killed Islam Wael Fahmi Dar Nasser, 16, when he was shot with a live fire round in the head, when exercising his right of assembly in Bil’in to protest the illegal Modi’in Illit settlement and the colonization of Bil’in village lands. 

In 2010, Jihad Yasin’s grandfather in his capacity as Head of the Bil’in Village Council, took court proceedings against the Canadian construction company Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. in the Superior Court of Quebec for aiding in international crimes of land appropriation and settler transfer in, and subsequently lodged an individual complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC). The HRC concluded that Canada had “violated its extraterritorial obligation to ensure articles 2, 7, 12, 17 and 27 of the Covenant by failing to regulate the activities of the two corporations so as to prevent human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory”. It is the failure of Israel and Third States like Canada to adhere to international law, that is perpetuating the prolonged occupation, colonisation, apartheid and resulting IOF attacks on the civilian population, including children.

3. The Night of 16 November 2021: “We did not know anything about him, neither about his whereabouts nor his fate” 

On 20 November 2021, Al-Haq’s field researcher documented the military arrest, detention and court hearing of child Jihad Yasin, from Bil’in village.

Jihad Bassem Ahmad Yasin, 15 is a student in the eleventh grade in Bil’in Boys’ School. On 16 November 2021, at 4:00 am, as the Yasin family was sleeping in their house located near the eastern entrance to the village of Bil’in, west of Ramallah, his father Bassem woke up with loud beating and knocking on the four doors o15f the house. 

“The intensity of the noise was such as to completely break and take off the doors. I realized that the voices yelling to open the doors were soldiers from the Israeli occupying army. So I rushed to open them the main door, and I found a large force from the regular Israeli army who were wearing brown army uniforms.”^[6] [Bassem Yasin]

None of them were masked, some had their helmets on, while some others had put large caps on. “When I opened the door, about twenty soldiers stormed into the house without showing any search or arrest warrant.”^[7] [Bassem Yasin] They creeped into all the rooms that our house is composed of, including the three bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen. 

“They kept yelling at us to “shut up and sit down” while brandishing their guns equipped with flashlights and roaming within the house. My wife had just worn her prayer clothes and was in her pajamas. There were all male soldiers, none of them was a female.”^[8]  

The soldiers asked about Jihad’s whereabouts, to which his father answered that he was not at home. “We know that he is not at home and that he sleeps in his grandmother’s house,”^[9] the soldiers responded. His grandmother is Yusra Yassin, 64, and she lives about a hundred meters away. They ordered the second son Ahmed, 19, to guide them to their grandmother’s to arrest Jihad. They did not give them any arrest warrant or reasons for arresting him. His father demanded the military officer - whom he had recognized as he had been referred to by the privates - to give him the reasons for the arrest of his son, but he did not answer him.  

Another group of soldiers stormed the house of the newly married oldest son, Mohammad, 21, located on the second floor, and brought him and his wife, Tala, 18, downstairs. The entire family - Bassem his father, his mother, his brother Mohammad and his wife, as well as his younger brother Adam, 11, were forced to sit in the salon.

“Mohammad’s wife was stricken with fear, and she was shivering. My wife, Kamar, 42, tried to give her water to appease her fear, but the soldiers prevented her to do so. My wife did not listen to the soldiers and went to fetch water to the kitchen, tailed by two soldiers. Adam also asked to go to the bathroom, but the soldiers prevented him. As he insisted, the soldiers finally allowed him on condition that they accompany him and stand at the bathroom door.”^[10] [Bassem Yasin] 

About a quarter of an hour later, the army unit that went to arrest Jihad returned with him, his hands tied behind his back. “I approached him and told him to exercise his right to silence and not to say anything without the presence of lawyer.”^[11] The soldiers quickly pulled him out of the house, grabbed him by the arms, and took him to a military jeep that was parked outside the house.  

“His mother asked to greet him before the arrest, and at first the soldiers refused, but I spoke with the officer and he allowed her to greet him, and the soldiers rushed him to the jeep outside the house.”^[12] [Bassem Yasin]

As the family was watching the scene, the soldiers threw and fired a stun grenade at them. It hit Bassem directly in his left leg, causing him a wound and heavy bleeding. Jihad’s uncle, Abdullah, 27, who had rushed to witness the scene, was hit by a gas bomb in his leg, causing serious burns, for which he was taken to a hospital by private car. In the meantime, his wife was violently thrown against the wall by the soldiers. The soldiers withdrew from the vicinity of their house to continue storming the village, where they arrested three other youth: Yaman Barnat, 16, Bara Barnat, 18, and Yassin Abu Rahma, 21. 

“I did not know what time exactly my son was taken by the occupation soldiers. His mother stayed at home, worried. We knew nothing about him, neither about his whereabouts nor his fate.” ^[13] [Bassem Yasin]

At about 12:00 pm the same day, his father received a phone call from an unknown number who identified himself as ‘Captain Robin’ from the Israeli police. He informed him that Jihad was being held by the detention center located near the Israeli Ni’lin checkpoint, and that he was summoned before the Ofer Military Court the day after. When he asked to speak with his son, Bassem was answered that it was forbidden. 

The day after, his mother went to the court, as the only person allowed to attend the hearing. She attended the court online by using the Zoom application. During the hearing, she was allowed by the occupation to talk to her son via a landline phone and Jihad was able to reassure her on his situation. The hearing started at 1:00 pm and lasted two hours. Jihad’s lawyer, Hafez Barnat of the Prisoners Club pleaded and charged Jihad with throwing Molotov cocktails, which Jihad denied. The judge decided to release Jihad on a financial bail of 2,000 shekels, but the military prosecution appealed the decision and Jihad’s court hearing was extended until Sunday 21 November 2021.

4. Jihad’s Arrest, Detention and Military Court Hearing: An Illustration of Israel’s Apartheid Domination Over Palestinian Children 

Childhood is a critical time that shapes human development and that is affected by coercive environments, especially when children grow up in contexts of armed conflict, colonization, apartheid and military occupation. [14] Israel, the Occupying Power administering the Palestinian terrtitory, must comply with both international human rights law and humanitarian law when dealing with the occupied population, [15] in particular vulnerable groups including children – enshrined in Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 77 of the First Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.[16] Protected persons should be at all times treated humanely and should not suffer acts of violence, as per Article 27(2) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.[17] As per Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),[18] States must respect and ensure respect of international humanitarian law and shall “take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.” [19]

Jihad was arbitrarily arrested in the middle of the night, in contravention of the protection afforded against arbitrary detention of children under Article 37 of the CRC. Under Article 37(b), “no child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.” [20] Like other Palestinian children that undergo the Israeli military court system, Jihad was not granted the benefit of child-adapted interrogation procedures or the presence of a lawyer or of a family member during the interrogation, leaving him at high risk of all sorts of ill-treatment, including physical and verbal abuse, and confessions under duress. A special military juvenile court was officially instituted pursuant to Military Order 1644 on 29 July 2009[21] to hear children below 16 years old, and which was raised to 18 years old in September 2011.[22]   

Under Amendment No.10 5781 of 27 September 2011, [23] the parents of the child should be immediately notified upon his or her arrest and interrogation. Children aged 16 to 18 may be detained up to 96 hours before court referral – exactly as adults.[24] His parents were only informed of his whereabouts, but not of the charges retained against him in the aftermath of his arrest, although “every child has the right to be informed promptly and directly [namely] as soon as possible after the first contact of the child with the justice system [and] that [n]otification of parents should not be neglected […],”[25] consistent with Article 40(2)(b)(ii) of the CRC.[26] Further, parents should be present throughout the proceedings, [27] as per Article 40(2)(b)(iii) of the CRC, [28]  unless the best interest of the child requires otherwise. Jihad was only allowed the presence of his mother, through the online platform zoom. 

Jihad’s family were required to pay a staggering bail of 2,000 NIS ($635 USD). The minimum wage in the occupied Palestinian territory being 1,450 NIS ($461 USD).[29] This amount of money constitutes an unbearable financial burden for his entire family. It contravenes basic justice principles, in particular the prescription that “[t]he payment of monetary bail should not be a requirement, as most children cannot pay and because it discriminates against poor and marginalized families.” [30]

Overall, the prosecution of Jihad before an Israeli military court is problematic in itself, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed that, children should be dealt with in special juvenile courts, as the trials of civilians by military trials constitutes an infringement on the non-derogable right to a fair trial. [31]

Conclusion

The Israeli strategy revolves around treating Palestinian children as targets and not as children afforded special legal protection, in order to reaffirm their domination over the Palestinian people. The arrest, detention and court prosecution experience are particularly traumatizing for children and leads to a wide range of felt repercussions on their psychological balance. 

Israel’s policies and practices of arbitrary arrest, detention and lack of fair trial for Palestinian children form part of the entrenchment of its regime of domination over the Palestinian people, as defined under Article II of the 1973 Apartheid Convention, in particular Article II(a)(iii) by arbitrarily arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group […].”[32] By maintaining pressure on the Palestinian youth, Israel ensures the maintaining of its system of racial domination towards future generations. The crime of Apartheid constitutes a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(j) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.[33]