Palestinian children tortured, used as shields by Israel: U.N.

July 29, 2014

This report is a year old, but given the constant refrain from defenders of the Israeli government’s policies in the Occupied Territories that civilian casualties in Gaza are due to Hamas forcing people to act as human shields, it seems relevant to the discussion:

(Reuters) - A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields.
[…]
Most Palestinian children arrested are accused of having thrown stones, an offence which can carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, the committee said. Israeli soldiers had testified to the often arbitrary nature of the arrests, it said.
[…]
It voiced deep concern at the “continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants”, saying 14 such cases had been reported between January 2010 and March 2013 alone.
Israeli soldiers had used Palestinian children to enter potentially dangerous buildings before them and to stand in front of military vehicles to deter stone-throwing, it said.
“Almost all those using children as human shields and informants have remained unpunished and the soldiers convicted for having forced at gunpoint a nine-year-old child to search bags suspected of containing explosives only received a suspended sentence of three months and were demoted,” it said.

Just so we’re clear, IDF soldiers have, in the past, conscripted Palestinian kids and forced them at gunpoint to enter potentially dangerous buildings, search containers suspected of containing explosives, and stand in front of IDF vehicles to prevent other Palestinians from throwing stones at the vehicles. I wonder if this is what the Israeli ambassador to the United States had in mind when he said that the IDF deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for its behavior in the Occupied Territories.

1:13am | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZMMjnx1MoDkOX

(Notes: 52)