Israeli military tries Palestinian children

A Palestinian boy named Mohammad, 14, is sentenced to four months in an Israeli prison. The prosecutor claimed the boy had hurled rocks at a watchtower and at Israel's separation barrier in the Occupied West Bank. Upon his attorney's advice, the boy pleaded guilty to avoid spending even more time behind bars. Human rights groups say Mohammad's case is typical for child offenders under the military law Israel imposes on the Palestinian territory. As of Mar. 31, 324 Palestinian children were held in Israeli prisons, according to the Geneva-based Defense for Children International (DCI), an international rights group. With conviction rates above 95 percent, Mohammad didn't stand much of a chance, said his lawyer, Iyad Misk. "The military trials are a sham. As a lawyer, I'd prefer not to take part in this charade, but I still try to help the children. For a lawyer, it's a moral dilemma," Misk said The trials, conducted in Hebrew and translated into Arabic, generally last just a few minutes. Lawyers are at times denied access to documents, when military officials classify the evidence as secret. Some of the children never get a trial, but are held without charges under "administrative orders" that can run up to six months and be renewed indefinitely. "Everything in military courts is designed in favor of the occupation," says Khaled Quzmar, who coordinates DCI's legal unit in the West Bank. Lawyers say as many as 50 percent of jailed Palestinian children are held for throwing rocks. The favorite targets are security forces in watchtowers or armored vehicles, and the walls, barbed wire and fences that prevent free travel to Israel and within the West Bank. Shehab, 15, was sentenced to four-and-a-half months in jail last year, accused of hurling a Molotov cocktail. Shehab says security forces showed up at his house at 2am, handcuffed, blindfolded and beat him before taking him to a military camp for interrogation. "They broke several of my teeth and my nose," he recalled. "They put a heater beside my face. They pinched me on the stomach and chest with pliers. They kicked me." He broke down and signed a confession. He insists he is innocent, but says he sees nothing wrong with hurling stones at soldiers "if they aggress us." Watchdogs say the arrest and detention process of Palestinian children violates the international Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is signatory. "A central aspect of the interrogation phase, is the use of particular forms of torture and ill treatment," says DCI.