Ramallah, August 12, 2024—Israeli forces beat and detained a seven-year-old Palestinian boy in the central occupied West Bank in June.
Seven-year-old Bahaa H. was on his way to a grocery store to buy sweets with his friends around 12:30 p.m. on the first day of Eid Al-Adha, June 16, in the Palestinian village of Al-Mughayer, northeast of Ramallah, when the boys came across Israeli forces carrying out arrests in the village, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. The boys allegedly threw some stones toward heavily armored Israeli military vehicles, and Israeli soldiers proceeded to fire live ammunition toward them. Bahaa’s friends fled, and Israeli forces began beating Bahaa and bound his hands behind his back with a plastic zip-tie.
“The age of criminal responsibility under Israeli military law is 12, meaning a Palestinian child as young as Bahaa could not be prosecuted in Israeli military courts,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Israeli forces know this and detained, beat, and harassed Bahaa for more than three hours anyway, certain they will face no consequences for terrorizing a little boy.”
On the side of the road, Israeli forces repeatedly beat Bahaa’s hands and tore up the 20 shekel bill (about $5 USD) Bahaa was planning to use to buy candy. Bahaa’s uncle tried to bring him home but Israeli soldiers refused to release him.
Israeli forces placed Bahaa alongside three young Palestinian men in the back of a military vehicle and brought them to Al-Sahel, an area about 700 meters (a bit less than half a mile) away that Israeli forces declared a closed military zone after October 7.
“The soldiers kept me there under the sun for almost three hours,” Bahaa told DCIP. “Then, a soldier untied me and told me I could go home but should not throw stones at them again. I headed back to the house on foot, and my hands were hurting after being hit by the soldiers. By the time I arrived home, my finger had swollen, and my face had turned yellow because I was really scared and because of walking in the sun the whole time.”
Upon arriving home, Bahaa’s father took him to Abu Falah Medical Center, where a doctor examined his swollen hand and treated him for an infection.
“I have not left the house since the incident because I am scared of the Israeli soldiers, and I do not want to get arrested again,” Bahaa told DCIP.
Around 500 to 700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 17 are arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system each year. The majority of Palestinian child detainees are charged with throwing stones. In addition to physical and psychological abuse during arrest and detention, Palestinian child detainees are overwhelmingly denied bail and routinely held in pretrial custodial detention for up to several months.
International juvenile justice standards, which Israel has obliged itself to implement by signing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, demand that children should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort. Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees.
Since the occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967 by Israeli forces, Palestinian children have been charged with offenses under Israeli military law and tried in military courts. Israeli military law is only applied to Palestinians even though Israeli settlers live in the same territory. No Israeli children come into contact with the Israeli military court system.
