Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israel’s Military Detention System is a short documentary that tells the story of three Palestinian children who were detained by the Israeli military in the West Bank.
The film, which was produced by Defense for Children International – Palestine, premiered on November 20 and was followed by a panel discussion. The group has also put together a discussion guide for hosting a screening of the film in your community.
Defense for Children International – Palestine is one of the six human rights organizations that has been targeted by the Israeli government in recent weeks for alleged ties to terrorism. Israel has produced no credible evidence connected to this claim.
Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israel’s Military Detention System
Israeli soldiers knelt on top of 16-year-old Osama while holding him at gunpoint, arrested 17-year-old Qusai in his home at three in the morning, and forced 17-year-old Islam to sleep outside in the cold overnight. Israeli authorities detained the three boys for periods ranging from seven days to a year and a half. Caging Childhood: Palestinian Children in Israel’s Military Detention System is a short documentary that shares the stories of three Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank and their experiences being detained, interrogated, prosecuted, and imprisoned in the Israeli military detention system.
Caging Childhood Panel Discussion
Manar Al-Amleh is the International Advocacy Officer at Defense for Children International – Palestine. She holds a BA in journalism and a minor in sociology from Birzeit University. She worked previously as a media officer in both governmental and non-governmental organizations, which helped her gain knowledge in human rights, entrepreneurship, arts, and other fields.
Brad Parker, Esq., is the Senior Adviser, Policy and Advocacy, at Defense for Children International – Palestine. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and leads DCIP’s legal advocacy efforts on Palestinian children’s rights. He co-leads DCIP’s No Way to Treat a Child campaign which aims to end the Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. Before joining DCIP, Brad worked as a legal advocacy coordinator and staff attorney at MADRE, a New York-based international women’s rights nonprofit organization. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont and earned his J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law.
Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison is a Palestinian-American rights activist and community organizer who was an elected Bernie Sanders 2020 Delegate to the DNC. She perceives the connectivities and forges linkages between causes advocating for equality, justice and freedom. Zeina often hosts webinars, takes part in public debates and has written and given interviews on topics ranging from racial justice reform, housing, and foreign policy issues primarily on Palestine. Zeina is a member of several organizations and boards and she actively engages in grassroots movements to amplify human rights, women’s voices and elevate the causes of those who are oppressed, excluded, or marginalized.
If you want to understand the attitudes of the IDF and Border Police towards the Palestinian population, watch this 2 minute trailer to the film “And I Was There”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx9Faj-YTbs&t=40s
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A related subject:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-a-brief-history-of-killing-children-1.10402508
A Brief History of Killing Children
Gideon Levy, Haaretz. Nov. 20/21
“First we were ashamed, then we were shocked, and we even investigated. Then we denied it and lied. After that we ignored and repressed it, yawned and lost interest. Now is the worst phase of all: We’ve started to extol the killers of children. That’s how far we’ve gone.
“The first child I remember wasn’t even a day old. His mother, Faiza Abu Dahuk, gave birth to him at a checkpoint. She was turned away by the soldiers from there and from two more checkpoints, until she had to carry him, all through a cold and rainy night. When she arrived at the hospital, he was already dead.
“The matter came up at a cabinet meeting. An officer was dismissed and a mini-storm ensued. This was in April 1996, during the year of hope and illusions. Four years later, when the second intifada broke out, soldiers killed Mohammed al-Dura in front of the cameras and Israel had already transitioned to the phase of denials and lies: Dura didn’t die. Israeli soldiers didn’t kill him; maybe he shot himself, maybe he’s alive to this day.
“Remnants of shame and guilt still clung somehow. After that came 20 years of indifference and complacence. Soldiers and pilots have killed 2,171 children and teenagers, and not one of these cases shocked anyone here, or sparked a real investigation or led to a trial. More than 2,000 children in 20 years – 100 children, three classrooms a year. And all of them, down to the last, were found guilty of their own death.
“Any Israeli would be happy to explain that they were terrorists and the soldiers or the police had no choice but to execute them. In the alternative between the lives of the children and the sacred lives of the soldiers, of course we prefer the soldiers, although there’s almost always a third possibility: for no one to be killed. (cont’d)
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“Last week the next phase was declared. Israel praises the killers of children; they are the new heroes. This never happened before. They were Palestinians, terrorists, but still they were children. From now on, take the life of a Palestinian child and be a hero on the front page of the newspaper or the top item on the TV news, including your daring picture, pixilated. “The hero from the Old City” – a Border Police officer ‘took out a terrorist and prevented a major disaster’ (Yedioth Ahronoth, Thursday). No mention in the headline of the age of the dangerous terrorist, of course, but no matter.
“’Remember me well,’ wrote 16-year-old Omar Abu Sab before he went out with a knife to stab a Border Police officer. A video clip released by the police shows him approaching two officers from behind and attacking them. He was smaller and thinner than them, they could have stopped him, they didn’t have to shoot him, and they certainly didn’t have to kill him, like they needlessly killed children with knives before him and after him. But to turn the shooting of a 16-year-old with a knife into a big story is the crossing of a moral red line. It will encourage the needless killing of more children, if any such encouragement was needed. The light trigger finger will become even lighter. If before this there was fear of a sham investigation, now a medal of valor is already in the works.
“How words kill. When the killers of children and teenagers, even when they’re armed with a knife, are extolled by the media and the commanders, this encourages the next criminal killing. There is no child with a knife that the well-armored Border Police can’t arrest without killing. But the police are too cowardly. That’s how they killed Eyad al-Hallaq, an autistic teenager. Real heroes would have arrested him, not shot him to death. But why bother if you can kill and become a hero? Most of the children that the army and the Border Police kill should not have been killed. Now it’s worth it to kill them, the media will crown you ‘the hero of the Old City.’ These are your heroes, O Israel, the killers of children and teenagers.”
It is unfortunate that the US, UK, and EU nations, that talk about equal rights and justice for everyone around the world, pretends Israel’s crimes against humanity, the suffering of helpless civilians, the traumatized children, and the dehumanizing of these poor people, are not going on.
Instead the aid and weapons for this oppressor keeps flowing uninterrupted, without conditions, and no outrage shown, for these horrible crimes.
Let’s call a spade a spade – Israel is nation that claims to be a “democracy”, but is led by leaders and a military with Nazi like mentality. The crimes get nastier, the children are treated like animals, even killed by the dozens, and the war criminals are out of control, and apart from the usual handwringing by human rights agencies, nothing ever changes.
So we have to wonder if the world’s greatest democracies, the Arab nations, and the rest of the world, does nothing to stop the torture, oppression, land theft, and the abuse of children, who will? It seems weapons, spyware, logistical support, and fruit, are far more important than human rights and justice, for people who have suffered for decades.
I recall a Palestinian kid was excitedly telling me the soldiers were afraid of them. Noticing the two bullet holes in his shirt by his waist led me to think there could be a more effective way of resisting than rocks. Thirty four years later I still wonder, if, only as a trial, the kids took up placards and cameras. That would create a dilemma for the soldiers.