Palestine: Terrorists? Or terrified?

Rabbit attack!

Today I watched a group of kids being chased by a giant rabbit…and then them chasing the rabbit in return. (Fiiine, shatter the illusion, it was a guy in a rabbit suit, next you’ll be telling me Father Christmas doesn’t exist either.) In the sunshine, there were drums, singing and laughter. A celebration of fun and childhood.

It felt a million miles from what I had seen the day before…people being chased by soldiers, stones being thrown at the army. Instead of drums, there were percussion grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. Instead of singing and laughter, there were yells and screams.
Another demonstration by Palestinians in Hebron stemming from outrage at the killing of a man by Israeli soldiers in a nearby refugee camp the week before.

We were monitoring the situation, recording the soldiers consistently using excessive force, breaking into houses and invading Palestinian areas, in which they are supposed to have no jurisdiction under international law. The soldiers were repeatedly running after protesters, attempting to make arrests.



Soldiers taking a break leaning on blocks with "Open Shuhada Street" and "Welcome to Apartheid Street" slogans

Mid afternoon, from a side street I saw soldiers emerging - victorious! They had finally caught some of the ‘terrorists’ who were demonstrating in such an unruly way. Shocked, I saw that the people they were dragging were kids. Small kids.  

I was frozen momentarily... even though I KNOW that children are detained and interrogated regularly by the Israeli military, I hadn’t anticipated what it would actually look like. The kids were crying. They were scared.

It felt like a personification of the occupation – small child versus heavily armed soldiers.

They took the two kids, along with a Palestinian man who was also arrested, towards the portacabin which comprises the checkpoint between the Palestinian and Israeli controlled areas in Hebron. It’s a metal box only a few metres long, with a metal detector over each door. The three Palestinians were dragged inside by the soldiers and the door was shut behind them.

Another activist and I ran the long way around – not allowed to go through the checkpoint, due to its apparent secondary use as a detention centre. Gasping, on our arrival on the other side, we saw that the checkpoint box was completely closed. The children were still inside, with who knows how many soldiers.



You can see man with blindfold inside the checkpoint

The commander refused to let us see the children. They even went so far as denying that anyone was inside (unless they keep a secret portal to another world in the checkpoint, I suspect that they were indeed inside)…but when they opened the door a crack I saw someone blindfolded inside, surrounded by soldiers.

A half hour of tense waiting ensured, on-edge, my mind running over all the reports I have read about child detention - beatings, torture and mistreatment. Eventually, a jeep pulled up. The checkpoint door was opened and the arrested Palestinian man was brought out, his hands ziptied and his eyes blindfolded.

Shortly afterwards, one of the boys was pulled out, his hands also ziptied. He looked terrified and was crying, begging the soldiers to let him go. One of the soldiers was saying “Shou?” ("What?”) over and over to the kid, mocking his crying. Looking into the faces of the soldiers, I couldn’t believe what they were doing. They avoided my eyes and my questions. The second child was also bundled into the jeep - see video below of the arrests.
 

I could do nothing…surrounded by soldiers, there was nowhere to run, nothing to do to help them. The jeep drove away, bearing its load of terrified children. I had to take myself away from the situation and do some very deep breathing and slow counting before I reacted in a decidedly NOT non-violent way to the soldiers.

Following up the case with the International Committee of the Red Cross, they said that the children should be freed soon. But we still haven’t been able to get confirmation.

I know who I feel is 'terrorist' and who 'terrified' in this situation.

 

Oh, AND the fuckers shot me in the hip with a plastic coated steel bullet. UGH.