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“They were trying to exterminate us”: Palestinian children in Gaza tortured by Israeli military
Ramallah, August 21, 2024—Israeli forces are systematically detaining and torturing Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, including using some as human shields.
During an Israeli military incursion into the Al-Tuffah area of Gaza City on December 27, 2023, Israeli forces detained at least eight Palestinian children and used several as human shields, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. Israeli forces detained around 50 Palestinians, including brothers 13-year-old Abdullah H. and 11-year-old Abdulrahman H. as well as 12-year-old Karim S. Israeli soldiers forced them to take off their clothes and bound their hands before forcing them to walk in front of Israeli tanks.
"They insulted us, slapped me on my face, and kicked me in my stomach and waist. I almost died from the beating," Karim told DCIP. “Then they made us walk in front of bulldozers and tanks in the streets so that the resistance wouldn’t target them.”
“They released dogs on us to scare me, beat me on the head, and stripped me of my clothes,” Abdulrahman told DCIP. “The soldiers fired shots over our heads and insulted us. We sat in the middle of Al-Yarmouk Stadium all night with our heads between our legs, surrounded by dogs, soldiers, and tanks. Anyone who asked for water or needed to use the bathroom was beaten with rifles.”
Since 2000, DCIP has recorded at least 31 cases in which Palestinian children were utilized by Israeli forces as human shields. Both international law and the Israeli High Court of Justice prohibit the use of civilians as human shields.
During the same incursion into the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, Israeli forces detained at least five other Palestinian children, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
“I was subjected to terror, humiliation, beating, insults and threats with dogs,” 14-year-old Hasan S. told DCIP. “When they bombed parts of the house, we tried to save our lives and leave the house, my mother, my father, little brothers, my sisters and I. My mother was raising a white flag, when the soldiers fired over our heads and forced us to walk in front of the tank on Salahaddin Street. When we reached the Shujaiyya junction, they tied us up, stripped us, blindfolded us and let the women go to western Gaza.”
“We were severely beaten with rifle butts, and they left dogs among us, where they mauled some of the detainees,” Hasan’s father said. “They cursed us with the most obscene words. They prevented us from even drinking water. The female soldiers would come and spit in our faces. They were trying to exterminate us. We remained in this state for several hours before the soldiers released me. I did not know the fate of my son Hasan, nor what they had done to him, until several hours later that evening.”
“They treated us like animals, not humans. When they entered our house, the soldiers were shouting and firing bullets everywhere. They took me from the house and ordered me to undress, then they tied me up and blindfolded me,” 16-year-old Mohammad S. told DCIP. “I was kicked in the face, and the marks are still visible. They dragged me on the ground, and blood was pouring from my knees, feet, face, and head. I didn’t know where I was. They threatened to kill me and throw my body to the dogs to eat, and they cursed me constantly with obscene words I had never heard before.”
During the incursion, after Israeli forces bulldozed the door of his home, a small Israeli drone entered Mohammad’s house and began firing live ammunition. Mohammad was detained by Israeli soldiers. His family was ordered to go to southern Gaza via Al-Rashid Street, and lost contact with the child after the forced separation until a neighbor told them that Mohammad was released and displaced at the Cairo School in Gaza City.
“The officer told me, ‘You are all Hamas,’ and that he would slaughter me with the knife in his hand,” said 16-year-old Abdulmunim D. to DCIP. “They beat me with rifles on my head, back, and waist, and blood was pouring from my entire body.”
Abdulmunim and his younger brother Ali, 15, were forcefully taken from their family by Israeli forces on that same day. Similar to Shehada’s case, Israeli forces stripped Abdulmunim and Ali of their clothes, blindfolded them, tied them up and beat them with rifles on their heads, faces, and backs.
Abdulmunim and Ali were left on the ground, full of stones and gravel, in the cold. Ali was unable to lift his head from the beatings. The two children spent a full day and night detained by Israeli forces without food or water.
Israeli forces also detained 13-year-old Ibrahim S. along with his mother and sisters after raiding their home in the Al-Tuffah.
“We started shouting loudly ‘Civilians, civilians’ but it was in vain,” Ibrahim told DCIP. Israeli forces fired live ammunition into the house before sending in a drone and military dog to collect surveillance.
“After that, the soldiers entered, took me and about ten other people from the neighborhood,” Ibrahim continued. “They stripped us of our clothes, blindfolded us, and tied us up amid the beatings with rifle butts on my head and insane shouting and gunfire around us. Then they transferred us to the Erez area in Israel, where they interrogated us. They kept telling us they would kill us all because we were Hamas and unleashed dogs on us. One of the detainees with us was bitten by a dog. We heard him scream in pain as the dog bit him.”
In front of the child, Israeli forces hit the child's mother with a rifle, unleashed dogs to bite detainees, and insulted them with vile words and threatened them with rape. “I heard them tell one of the detainees that they would do things to his wife, mentioning her by name,” Ibrahim said.
DCIP field researchers also collected testimonies from two Palestinian children who were detained and tortured by Israeli forces in Gaza City in March.
“Dad, I saw death with my own eyes. The soldiers were debating in front of me whether to crush me under the tank chains or let the dogs eat me alive,” 13-year-old Shehada B. told DCIP.
Israeli forces detained Shehada on March 1, 2024, while he was waiting for humanitarian aid convoys near the coast of Gaza City for three days without any food or water, Shehada’s father told DCIP. Israeli forces tied him up, stripped off his clothes, blindfolded him, and beat him. Israeli forces threatened to kill Shehada before forcing him to go to southern Gaza, where he does not have any family.
As part of Israel’s campaign of genocide, Israeli authorities are intentionally and systematically separating Palestinian children from their families, and depriving their basic human rights by torturing them, which exacerbates children’s mental and physical health problems in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces detained 14-year-old Shadi B. on March 6, 2024 while he was waiting for humanitarian aid convoys. Israeli quadcopters fired live ammunition into a crowd of Palestinians and detained around 100 people, including Shadi.
“We were walking over the bodies of martyrs when the tanks surrounded us and ordered us to march between the tanks to the Netzarim corridor,” Shadi said. “They stripped us of our clothes, blindfolded us, tied us up, and beat us over our heads. They cursed us with filthy insults, saying things like, 'You hungry ones, let Hamas feed you, you filthy, lice-ridden ones.' It was humiliation in every sense of the word.”
When Israeli forces released Shadi the next day, his family discovered his hands swollen from the shackles and his arm broken. He was also hungry and had not eaten for more than a day.
Israeli forces have detained an unknown number of Palestinians, including children, to Israeli military bases and detention centers in Israel since October 2023. The children’s names, exact locations, whereabouts, and conditions are also unknown, indicating these are enforced disappearances.
Whether they are civilians or combatants, Israel is holding Palestinians, including children in Gaza under Israel’s 2002 "Unlawful Combatants Law." This Israeli civil law permits the state to detain as claimed “enemy fighters” for extended periods of time without following the standard legal procedures, and to hold them without granting them the status of prisoners of war. Therefore, for those imprisoned under this law, a detention order may only be issued within 45 days following their arrest. Furthermore, the law permits Israeli authorities to forbid detainees from meeting with a lawyer and postpone judicial review for up to 75 days, or up to six months with a judge's approval.
According to the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the “enforced disappearance” is considered “to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty ... followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person ...” and actions that resemble forced disappearance are considered international crimes punishable by law, depending on its extreme seriousness.
According to the Convention, forced disappearance qualifies as a crime that rises to “crimes against humanity” if it is carried out extensively or systematically on a large scale, which is exactly what the Israeli army forces are practicing by penetrating in all areas of the Gaza Strip, where they have arrested hundreds, and continue to held many of them in Israeli military prisons, along with thousands of Palestinian people whose fate is still unknown.
The enforced disappearance of Palestinian children amidst the ongoing war in Gaza is a serious breach of international law. The Israeli practice of forcibly disappearing against the Palestinian children is prohibited under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance, which Israel has not ratified, but is still bound by customary international law. However, Israel has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids the ill-treatment of Gaza-based Palestinian children during times of wars.
(c) 2024 Defense for Children International
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