WATCH: IDF Detains 5-Year-Old Palestinian In Hebron, Blindfolds And Handcuffs Father (UPDATED)
On Tuesday afternoon, seven IDF soldiers and an officer detained a five-year-old Palestinian child, Wadi’a Maswadeh, in Hebron after he threw a stone that according to the IDF, hit the tire of a car belonging to a settler. (The age of criminal responsibility is 12).
The soldiers took him crying and screaming in an army jeep to his home where his mother said he cannot be taken anywhere before the father gets home. (Video footage by B’Tselem volunteers Manal al-Jabri and Imad Abu Shamsia is below.) Once the father, Karam, came home, the soldiers took him and Wadi’a to Checkpoint 56, where they blindfolded and handcuffed Karam. They waited for half an hour, until a lieutenant colonel from the DCO (District Coordination Office of Civil Administration) arrived. He asked the child why he threw stones and then turned to the soldiers and scolded them for detaining a child in front of the cameras. He reportedly told them that “from a Hasbara [PR] standpoint, you are causing damage,” and told them that when cameras are around, they should treat detainees “nicely.” They were eventually met by Palestinian police offers, transferred to their custody and freed shortly thereafter.
B’Tselem has written an urgent letter to IDF Judea and Samaria legal advisor Lt.-Col. Maurice Hirsch, demanding explanation for what appears to be the routine procedure of detaining children illegally. A child under the age of 12 is forbidden by law to be detained or arrested. Furthermore, according to B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli, the IDF’s unequal and discriminatory conduct towards settler children who throw stones and Palestinian children who throw stones is clear from such an incident:
--CLIP
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http://972mag.com/watch-idf-detains-5-year-old-in-hebron-blindfolds-and-handcuffs-father/75594/
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