No justice in occupation

A report about Palestinian children in Israeli jails highlights the brutality of domination

Parents of Palestinian Dima al-Wawi, 12, who is believed to be the youngest female detained by Israel, greet her upon her release. Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP

People living in the occupied West Bank face two different systems of law determined by their ethnicity and citizenship. Israeli settlers living in hilltop settlements have full civil rights and democratic privileges. They answer to a western civilian judicial system for criminal and security-related offences. Palestinians don’t have the same rights nor are they subject to a civilian judicial system. They answer to a military court system administered by Tel Aviv in a manner that doles out punishments instead of delivering justice.

Just look at the rate of conviction in Israel’s military courts. Conviction rates for “security-related offences”, which is an ever-expanding blanket term used to incarcerate large numbers of Palestinians, stands at a staggering 99.74 per cent, according to a 2011 report produced by the military courts.

Palestinian children aren’t even beyond the long arm of the courts. Defence for Children International released its annual report this month and found between 500 and 700 children are prosecuted in the military courts each year. Currently, 440 children are in Israeli jails, the highest total since Israel began keeping figures in 2008. 104 of the child detainees are between 12 and 15 years old.

Last week, West Bank resident Sabha Al Wawi wrote in these pages of her 12-year-old daughter’s incarnation in an Israeli prison. She wrote of her child’s physical and emotional abuse suffered while in Israel’s custody. She listed the fines imposed on her family and wrote of how her husband had his work permit revoked after her daughter’s arrest.

Sabha Al Wawi’s words and experience reveal the human cost of Israel’s continuing oppression of the Palestinian people through occupation and domination. Jailing hundreds of children every year is symptom of the cancer of occupation. The deprivation of Palestinian rights is required to maintain total Israeli control. That is why there is no reforming such an unjust and discriminatory system. There can be no justice and no freedom in occupation.