Nasser Nawaj'ah/B'Tselem
- Five Palestinian children were apprehended by Israeli soldiers in southern Hebron on Wednesday.
- The young boys were then taken to a police station where they were detained for several hours.
- Three of the children. aged between eight and 11, are below the age of criminal responsibility in Israel.
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A video has emerged of five Palestinian children being detained by Israeli soldiers near a West Bank outpost on Wednesday afternoon.
The children, aged between eight and 13, were apprehended after settlers from the Havat Maon settlement in southern Hebron reported them to a military patrol.
-Joshua Zitser (@mrjoshz) March 12, 2021
The video of the incident, initially shared by the human rights nonprofit B'Tselem, shows the young boys being escorted into a vehicle by soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces. One of the children can be seen crying and struggling as an armed soldier lifts him into the van. Another holds hands with one of his masked captors.
They're just children, what is this?" an adult can be heard yelling at the soldiers.
The young boys are accused of attempting to steal parrots from a private property in an Israeli settlement, a spokesperson for the Israeli police told Insider.
Havat Maon is one of many settler outposts in the West Bank, considered illegal by international law, that is not authorized by the Israeli government. There have been several incidents in the area of Palestinian children being harassed by Israeli settlers while on their way to school.
Armed military personnel reportedly took the children into the settlement and questioned them about their alleged attempted theft, according to the children's lawyer.
"They were taken to the Havat Maon illegal outpost, where the soldiers tried to get a confession from them, which is illegal," their lawyer, Gaby Lasky, told Insider.
Both the Israeli police and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) dispute this claim and instead insist that the young boys were immediately taken to a police station.
Nasser Nawaj'ah/ B'Tselem
After being transferred to Kiryat Arba police station, the young boys were detained for several hours. Their parents, despite multiple attempts, were unable to contact or locate their children, according to Lasky.
Israeli officials claim that the detention's purpose was to help reunite them with their families. A spokesperson from the IDF told Insider that the boys were transferred to a police facility for "further processing" and to "locate their parents."
This is echoed by the Israeli police force. "The minors were brought to the police, who acted in order to locate their parents that live in Palestinian territory, for several hours," the spokesperson told Insider.
Lasky, who is representing the five boys, has said that the boys' detention was criminal.
"Three of the kids were under the criminal age of responsibility, so they can't detain them and they can't take them to the police station or anywhere else. This is completely illegal," she told insider.
The age of criminal responsibility in Israel is 12. Three of the boys are aged between eight and 11. The two older boys are 12 and 13 and are old enough to be charged with a crime.
The lawyer also believes that the use of military force on the children was unwarranted. "The way that the children were taken and made to kneel when they were detained is not only unnecessary but is also completely illegal," Lasky told Insider.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Image
Lasky has filed a complaint with the attorney general of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Israeli police.
All five boys were initially summoned for further questioning, according to their lawyer. While the two older boys will be interrogated on Sunday, the three younger children had their summons canceled after an objection by their lawyer, Lasky told Insider.
The human rights organization B'Tselem, whose activists were at the scene, has said that the incident shines a light on the reality of life under occupation.
"It is part of the routine of the occupation for incidents like this, as absurd as they are, to take place," Amit Gilutz, a B'Tselem spokesperson, told Insider. "It is a reflection of the absolute disregard Israeli authorities hold for the wellbeing of Palestinians."
"No matter what these children were doing in the vicinity of the settlements," he added, "they shouldn't have been arrested by military force."