A West Bank rite of passage is being cracked down by Israel troops
Umm Abdullah sits beneath a cross-stitched portrait of akeffiyeh-clad Palestinian youth holding a stone high in the air. Her sunny,crumbling apartment in Dheishe refugee camp in the southern West Bank town ofBethlehem is filled with the laughter of children and grandchildren -- but twoof her sons are missing. "The Israeli soldiers come in the night,"she says, staring at a faded photograph of a teenage boy. "They take ourchildren."
Three of her seven children spent time in Israeli prisons onstone-throwing charges when they were minors. Two of them, now adults, arestill behind bars. Her youngest, 20-year-old Abdullah, has been arrested threetimes -- the first when he was 16. In Dheishe, Umm Abdullah's story is oftenthe norm.
According to Defence for Children International (DCI),around 700 West Bank children are arrested every year, most accused of stoningIsraeli soldiers and military vehicles. Other charges include making petrolbombs and involvement in "terrorist groups". At the end of June, DCIfigures showed that 221 Palestinian children were in detention. Of that number,35 were aged between 12 and 15. Stone throwing, a symbol of Palestinianresistance to the Israeli occupation, began among the youth of Jabaliya refugeecamp in the northern Gaza Strip during the first Palestinian uprising(1987-1993). And 25 years on, with those children now adults, their ownchildren continue do the same.
Under Israeli military order 1651, throwing stones is anoffence which can see a child as young as 14 sentenced to 10 years behind barsif it is directed at a person with the intent to harm, or up to 20 years ifthrown at a vehicle.
Dheishe resident Mohammed al-Jareishi was 16 when hisclassmates at Bethlehem's Iskander al-Khoury school were arrested from theirhomes, many during night raids. At 17, he himself was charged with throwingrocks and belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)-- which Israel and the United States see as a terrorist group. "Throwingstones shows the Israeli soldiers that we are still here, that we exist,"says Jareishi, glancing out the window. "We want toys -- not guns orrocks," he says. "But this will only happen when the occupation endsand we get our rights back."
