Nine children aged 13-17 were kidnapped this afternoon (Monday 10 October) from Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem by masked Israeli soldiers.
On Wednesday October 5th three 14-year-olds, Mustafa Bdair, Mo'taz Barak'ah and Omar Radi were seized from their homes at 4am by Israeli soldiers. They were released on Sunday evening. The three are members of Lajee Dance group from in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem (twinned with Glasgow). Some of us hosted the young Palestinians during their most recent UK tour in July. They are our friends.
Over 300 Palestinian children remain in Israeli prisons. Israel prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children. Three out of four children experience physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military court system.
Attacks on the Lajee Centre have escalated since the UK-wide support given to the Palestinian dancers; Celtic Fans raised over £170,000 divided between Medical Aid for Palestine and the Lajee Centre in Aida Camp. (Bethlehem is offically twinned with Glasgow.)
Email your MP quickly here:
http://coordin8.org.uk/app/index.php/mps/find_mp/lajee3
Night raids by Israeli soldiers fit into a pattern of reprisals that occupation forces often implement following international gestures of solidarity with the Centre. While arming the Israeli Army, the US, UK and EU governments officially consider the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza to be illegal.
On Setember 19th, Israeli soldiers attacked the Lajee Centre with teargas and rubber bullets while the children were inside. The following night, the soldiers, who use the inhabitants of the camp for training purposes, opened the gate of the center, threw teargas grenades inside and quickly closed the gate, trapping the children inside, forcing them to inhale toxic teargas.
Israel prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic guarantees of fair trial. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children. Three out of four children experience physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation. No Israeli child comes into contact with the racist sytem of the military courts.
If you live in the UK, please write to your elected MP as a matter of urgency to get them to ask the Israeli Embassy where these children are and to demand their immediate and unconditional return to their families.
It’s hard to endure arrests and torture when you feel you have been forgotten by the whole world, and our governments rub salt in Palestine's open wounds.
But, even a chink of light into the darkness can give hope.
Email your MP quickly here: http://coordin8.org.uk/app/index.php/mps/find_mp/lajee3
The Israel Army arrests – kidnaps – many thousands of Palestinians, men women and children, for a variety of reasons. Generally, they aim to break the Palestinian will to resist their dispossession; sometimes those held are used as bargaining chips in negotiations; sometimes because an individual has filmed or reported some Israeli brutality, e.g. the execution of a helpless Palestinian, the shooting of a blindfolded captive. The occupation regime's "justice system" threatens anyone who throws one stone at an Israeli tank or soldier with 20 years in prison.
News of support from around the world can change everything, even the balance of power in a dungeon, when the jailers and jailed hear of international solidarity with the violated. We know this from the experience of the liberation struggle in South Africa. When nelson Mandela met with Dunn's 1984 strikers in Dublin in 1990, he said that the stand taken by the twelve workers helped him to keep going during his time in prison.
Please ask your MP to add their name to the outcry over the night raids, arrests, and frequent torture of our friends in Aida Refugee Camp in occupied Bethlehem, Palestine.
Email your MP to demand from the Israeli Embassy
- the immediate release of these children from military detention
- that Israel cease night time raids to seize Palestinian children
- that Palestinian children who are arrested be accorded the same rights as Israeli children to be accompanied by a parent and legal counsel.
Email your MP quickly here: http://coordin8.org.uk/app/index.php/mps/find_mp/lajee3
Recommended: a memoir of occupation and resistance in Aida Camp: Rich Wiles’ Behind the Wall
