By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
BEIT UMMAR, West Bank – In Beit Ummar, a Palestinian child was allegedly captured by Israeli soldiers on April 16. The child, fifteen-year-old Sabri Awad, was seized by the soldiers at the entrance to Beit Ummar after they suspected he was involved in stone-throwing. Awad told Al-Jazeera that the soldiers questioned him about the stone-throwing, which he denied, then the soldiers reportedly beat him for two hours. During the beatings, he was forced to drink fetid water, which Awad believed was sewage. Awad said that he vomited, after which the soldiers continued to beat him. Awad alleges the soldiers then threw him out of the Army jeep and sped away.
Media reports estimate that Israel is currently holding approximately three hundred Palestinian youth in custody, and that up to seven hundred Palestinian children and adolescents were detained by Israelis in 2009. Experts say that the full effects of such detentions are not fully known. Over 760,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since 1967, which many experts say is one of the main sources of a trans-generational trauma that is pervasive throughout the Palestinian population, and one that will necessarily remain as long as there is occupation. Palestinian children who had at one time been in Israeli custody account for twenty percent of patients in the only torture victim center in the Palestinian territories. Even if the youth had not been tortured while in prison, mental health experts say that these young people tend to suffer more severe post-traumatic stress than adults who had been imprisoned.
In the same village where Sabri Awad was allegedly beaten, Israeli settlers from the Gush Etzion settlement opened their sewage pipe on April 21, flooding a Palestinian vineyard and destroying 70,000 square meters of prime agricultural land. Land experts who had surveyed the damage later said that both the land and the crops were effectively destroyed.
The Israeli Civil Administration later confirmed the incident, and said that compensation for the incident would have to be sought in court. A spokesman for the agency said that the sewage pump in the settlement had stopped working due to a power outage and that the resulting flood was a mistake.
The Israeli military has imposed a tight blockade on Beit Ummar and the surrounding areas since last week.
For more information, please see:
International Middle East Media Center – 58 Detained, One Wounded and 70 Dunams Drowned in Sewage – 23 April 2010
Ma’an News Agency – Vineyard Flooded with Settlement Sewage – 23 April 2010
Al-Jazeerah.info – Palestinian Child Reveals Abuse, Beating, and Drinking Sewage Water by Israeli Occupation Soldiers – 22 April 2010
Press TV – Palestinian Kid Forced to Drink Sewage – 22 April 2010
Al-Jazeera – Young Palestinians in Israeli Jails – 17 April 2010
