Christian Science Monitor: Israel arrested 100 children from Silwan in October

[ 01/11/2010 - 12:50 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Christian Science Monitor newspaper stated in a report that Israel arbitrarily arrested a 100 children, most of them under age 13 last month in Silwan district, east of occupied Jerusalem. The Israeli police claims that only 40 people were arrested throughout east Jerusalem for allegedly throwing stones at policemen and engage in violence on their way to or from school, according to the newspaper. A human rights group argued otherwise saying it received complaints that many arrests were conducted by undercover forces without any disturbance or stone throwing beforehand and that the children kidnapped as they were at the entrance to their homes or in adjacent roads and alleys that serve as their playground. Some other children were kidnapped from their homes at three or four o'clock in the morning. "A disturbing picture arises of children being removed from their beds in the middle of the night and carted off to the police station in handcuffs without parents’ accompaniment,” the association for civil rights inside Israel stated earlier this week. “The children report violent and frightening interrogations conducted by regular police officers and not by child and youth investigators.” In another incident, the newspaper said, a 10-year old boy was harmed by a group of Israeli plain-clothes forces who sprang out of an unmarked car and grabbed him off the street in Silwan. In the view of Fakhri Abu Diab, a local resident active in the battle against house demolitions, the arrests are actually aimed at forcing parents out of Silwan, part of the holy city Israel claims as its undivided and eternal capital. “They want to scare the parents so they will give up and leave this area,” said Diab, whose own home is slated for demolition. In another development, a document published Sunday by the Israeli premier's office claimed that the Palestinian child Mohamed Al-Dura, who was killed by Israeli soldiers 10 years ago, was shot dead by Palestinian gunfire and his death was carefully planned by the Palestinians in order to show Israeli troops as bloodthirsty. On September 30, 2000, Dura was along with his father when Israeli soldiers showered them with a barrage of bullets, although the father was calling on the soldiers to stop shooting. The crime was documented and photographed by France 2 channel reporters.