The kids in Israeli military jail.

Yesterday, Israel and Hamas agreed on a temporary ceasefire to allow for the return of some of the hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli jail.

The mainstream press is filled with tense profiles of the hostage’s families as they wait to learn if their loved one will be released. But in the US press, at least, there are fewer details, much less stories, about the prisoners sitting in Israeli military jail, pre-trial, in many cases for throwing rocks.

The Israeli government released 300 names that are eligible, of which they’ll pick 150. They released the names in Hebrew—odd, given their penchant for writing “humanitarian supplies” and “incubators” in English on widely disseminated photos of supplies they’ve allegedly sent into Gaza.

But anyway, if you go through the list, and plug each case into a translator app, you get the persons age, name, date of arrest and charges—you can also tell if they’re in jail pre-trial because people who’ve been sentenced have their sentences noted. Take a look yourself. I was too lazy for data analysis and mostly drew conclusions from more casual observation, which naturally means it’s a biased analysis (my bias being that I don’t think a 14-year-old should be in jail pre-trial before facing a military court).

But a few observations: There are a lot of 14, 15, 16, and 17 year olds. There are a lot of charges that could easily be overhyped (“arson”—of what? “Weapon”: a machine gun or pocket knife?). We all know how US cops and prosecutors stack charges, and they have to at least pretend inmates are human.

There’s no story though. Here’s the information that’s available.

Abraham Muaid Abraham Daffer
Prisoner number
9195226
ID
420969610
gender
male
age
17
Date of birth
30.4.2006
Living area
manning
Organizational affiliation
GAP
ID type
territories
Israeli citizenship
No
type of prisoner
under arrest
Date of arrest
1.8.2023
Prison term (displayed by: days--months--years)
under arrest
Details of the offences
Damage to the security of the area
the court of justice
court martial

There is a prisoner

Hasan Git

Prisoner number

9201517

ID

217928381

gender

male

age

14

Date of birth

13.5.2009

Living area

sea

Organizational affiliation

with no

ID type

blue

Israeli citizenship

No

type of prisoner

under arrest

Date of arrest

24.5.2023

Prison term (displayed by: days--months--years)

under arrest

Details of the offences

Hostile sabotage activity, gathering or association, attacking a police officer under serious circumstances, throwing stones, negligence and general recklessness, maliciously or negligently causing damage to property, arson on a nationalist background, weapons/ammunition/explosives

the court of justice

Or:

9166861
Identity card 423632322
male gender
16 years old
Date of birth 5.12.2006
residential area
Organizational affiliation without
Type of ID card
Israeli citizenship is not required
type of prisoner
Date of arrest June 21, 2022
Period of imprisonment (displayed by: days--months--years) in detention
The details of the offenses: throwing stones, throwing a bomb or an incendiary
The judicial court is a military court

3,000 Palestinian prisoners are held in so-called “administrative detention” which means 6 months pre-trial detention without knowing the exact charges (Also notice that the 16-year-old above he’s been behind bars pre-trial for a year and a half).

Human rights groups have chronicled the horrors prisoners, including children, experience in Israeli military jails.

According to Save the Children:

Each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone throwing, for which the maximum sentence is 20 years. Currently, more than 190 Palestinian children remain in detention in Israeli prisons, the majority of whom, like Ahmed, are in pre-trial detention and have not been convicted of any offence. This is despite calls by the United Nations to release them before the coronavirus spreads.

Former child detainees have told us that the conditions in which they are held in Israeli prisons are horrific, with overcrowded cells, few available sanitary products and almost no access to medical assistance.

According to the OMCT Torture Network, children are violently arrested: beat, kicked, humiliated and threatened. They’re exposed to rape, threats, and physical and psychological violence. Further:

… the children are reportedly subjected to sleep deprivation spanning, continuous and long interrogation, painful manacling of the hands and feet, pouring of freezing cold water on the detainee and preventing him from changing his clothing for a long period of time, covering the head with a sack, shooting the detainee with small plastic bullets from point blanc range, placing weights on the detainee's shoulders for an extended period of time, dunking his head in ice water, humiliation and threats.

Is there a better metric for dehumanization of a population than when kids are treated like criminals?

Super-predators, a label we slapped onto children of color in the US. Trying kids as adults, as we do here as well. And well, torturing them, as we also do here through practices like solitary confinement. Once you label a kid a criminal or, in Israel's case, criminal military threat, you mentally catapult them into adulthood, and then nothing is off limits.

The incomprehensible child death toll is Gaza is still, somehow, being spun as the fault of Hamas for using “human shields.” What’s the “regrettable,” but militarily necessary, justification for torturing kids in jail without trial?

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