In 2002, Israel started to construct its so-called West Bank Barrier - in parts a concrete wall in parts a metal fence - purportedly to prevent Palestinians from the West Bank carrying out attacks inside Israel. In reality however the wall belies any security justifications; it encroaches deep into the West Bank, annexing vast swathes of Palestinian lands. The route the wall has taken has resulted in severe infringements on the right to freedom of movement of Palestinians, alongside violations of basic rights such as the right to education and the right to health. For Palestinians, the wall that towers in front of their homes is essentially a prison wall and a continuous reminder of the control the military regime has over their lives.

The Israeli government is determined to ignore national and international criticism and legislation and finish the wall as soon as possible. Thus anyone involved in any form of protest against the wall, or delaying its construction in any way, is considered by the Israeli authorities to have committed a serious offence, not least against the “security” of Israel and thus Israeli authorities appear determined to quash any form of resistance to the wall.

The International Court of Justice: Advisory Opinion on the Wall In July 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague declared: “The construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law”. The ICJ called on Israel to cease construction of the wall and to dismantle any part of the structure standing, to repeal any laws or regulations concerning the construction of the wall, and to compensate for all damage wreaked by the Wall. The ICJ reaffirmed the principle that serious violations of international law may constitute a threat to peace and security that necessarily concerns all states: “All States are under an obligation not to recognise the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction; all States parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 have in addition the obligation, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention.” Despite the celebrations of many following these declarations, one year later the Advisory Opinion has had little practical impact. Israel continues to construct the wall disrupting the lives of thousands, little reparation has been made for the damage wreaked by the construction of the wall, and no state has made any substantial effort to ensure respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention whose provisions Israel has repeatedly violated. Even if a register of damages caused by the wall is compiled, as was requested by the General Assembly, vague indications of future reparations do nothing to prevent the scarring of thousands of children's lives as the wall continued to lengthen.

The High Court of Justice: Rulings on the Wall Many petitions have been submitted to the Supreme Court of Israel sitting as the High Court of Justice in protest against sections of the wall. Most of these petitions have been submitted on behalf of Palestinian Village Councils, who are concerned about the substantial negative impacts the route of the wall will have on the lives on the local population. Most petitions demonstrate to the court, with ample evidence and first hand testimony, that the damage the route of the wall will have on, for example, family and social life, is disproportionate to the alleged aim; the correct balance has not been met between security and humanitarian considerations. Many of these petitions have been rejected, and often the word of the military commander is taken over the evidence submitted by residents of the areas affected. However, a petition before the High Court in June 2004 regarding the wall around a village in the northwest of the Jerusalem municipality resulted in alterations of the route of the wall. The petition charged that the wall would result in severe and dire consequences for the local population. The court ruled that the injuries resulting from the routing in that particular section of the wall were disproportionate.

Children in Protest against the Wall

Over the past three years thousands of Palestinian children have watched as the wall has grown to form an impassable barrier blocking their way to school and to other basic services, preventing them from visiting friends and relatives, cutting them off from their lands, from their families' livelihoods, and dividing and isolating their villages. Unsurprisingly, many children have taken to the streets of their villages in protest against the Wall.

When Israeli bulldozers first moved in to clear a path for the Wall, demonstrations and protests by Palestinians were all but impossible because of the myriad incursions and curfews that formed the backdrop to normal life in 2002. However in 2003, as construction of the Wall moved further south to the villages west of Ramallah, regular demonstrations began. As popular frustration and disgust grows, these demonstrations have become increasingly more frequent and spread to villages all along the route of the wall.

In the early days of the protests, demonstrators sought to reach the site of the wall or the construction area. However, the Israeli military commander declared this a closed military zone, ensuring any protestors who entered were liable to arrest. The military zone has since been extended to a 500-metre area around the construction sites. Recently, particularly in villages engaged in frequent demonstrations, Israeli soldiers have begun to confront crowds of protesters before they even reach the area, claiming this is being done to prevent any delay in construction. On other occasions, a curfew is declared both to prevent non-local protestors from entering the village and as a form of collective punishment on residents. Budrus, for example, in west Ramallah, was put under curfew for a whole week in the beginning of 2004, after villagers engaged in a protest against the Wall.

The Israeli military response to such demonstrations has become increasingly aggressive. The rallies usually begin peacefully, however the crowds of unarmed protestors, many of them women and children, walking towards the wall or construction site, are routinely confronted with tear gas, sound grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets. Once such violent methods of crowd dispersal are employed by the army, the children and youth in the crowd frequently respond by throwing stones. Then the army reprisals begin in earnest. Since the anti-wall protests started in 2003, a total of 12 Palestinians have been killed at the demonstrations, including five children.

There have been several reports of undercover Israeli special forces and intelligence agents either initiating or encouraging stone throwing and aggressive acts among the ‘shebab' or young men and boys in the crowd. It is enough for these agents to throw one stone, to instigate further stone throwing, and this then becomes a justification for Israeli strong-arm tactics against the entire crowd. Just before turning on and arresting Palestinian demonstrators close by, these undercover agents pull out hidden weapons and put on an identifying cap so that they will not be targeted by their own troops positioned further away. Such incidents have been recorded at Bil'in and at Budrus.

Palestinian children are routinely arrested – even targeted – by Israeli forces during these civil protests. They are often at the very forefront of the marchers, sometimes running ahead to see what's happening – and thus entering military zones before the body of the demonstrators. Moreover, they can easily be tricked into throwing stones by undercover agents keen to implicate them in violent activities. Upon arrest, Palestinian children and other demonstrators are bundled into the back of waiting military jeeps – though in at least one infamous incident at Biddu last April, a 13-year old Palestinian child was tied to the hood of a border police jeep to effectively act as a human shield against stone throwing.

Children are not only arrested at the time of the demonstration, but also later. For frequently, once the foreign protestors and camera crews have packed up and left, Israeli police and soldiers re-enter the villages to detain locals who they claim have been participating in the demonstrations. The children are taken together with the adults first to the nearest police station for interrogation, and then on to detention centres where they are held pending trial.

In 2003, it was reported that an order from an IDF commander was issued to prosecutors of the military courts to be stricter and give longer sentences to children arrested for their involvement in protests against the wall – even if their alleged offence is as harmless as throwing rocks at an eight-metre high concrete wall. The head of prosecutors has purportedly also issued recommendations for children involved in activities against the wall to be given longer sentences than those arraigned for other offences ensuring the prosecutors are under pressure from all levels above them.

Case Study 1 Fifteen-year old Ahmed was arrested at a protest against the wall in Beit Sourik on 5 June 2005. There were internationals, Israelis and Palestinians at the protest. When they were more than 500 metres away from the wall, around five Arab men began to throw stones. They were far away from the soldiers, and they were throwing the stones so as not to hit the soldiers. As they drew nearer the wall, some children began to throw stones too, encouraged by these men. Suddenly, the men pulled out guns that they'd hidden in their clothes and began arresting children. These Arabic speaking men are a part of Mustar Arabin- a special section of the Israeli Army. Three boys, including Ahmed, were arrested and sent to the police station in Giv'at Ze'ev, where they were interrogated about stone throwing. All three boys confessed to throwing stones. After two or three days in the police station Ahmed was sent to court to renew the arrest. A special policeman can renew the arrest for up to four days without going to court, but the court can grant a longer period of renewal. The family lawyer asked for release, and the judge believed that there was no need to hold Ahmed as he did not pose a serious threat. The prosecutor, however, went to the military appeal court, where they decided to hold Ahmed pending trial. The prosecutor, fortunately for Ahmed, lost his file before trial. The military court has a list of the charges brought against the accused but holds no evidence relating to the trial; this is all with the prosecutor in his file. Because there was no file, an agreement was reached on the 13 July between the prosecutor and the family lawyer, for a sentence of seven weeks. If the file had been found the sentence would have been at least three months.

Case Study 2 Ziad and Noor are fifteen-year old cousins from Beit Awwa, south of Hebron. On the 22 March 2005, on their way home from school, the cousins saw a demonstration against the wall which lies only 50 metres from their house. The soldiers attempted to disperse the demonstration by throwing tear gas canisters and by beating some demonstrators. Many of those present were arrested, including Ziad and Noor. These two boys were beaten and intimidated during their interrogation, and were compelled to confess that they had thrown stones twice – before and also during the demonstration against the wall. They were charged with the two offences - one of throwing stones in the past and on charge of stone throwing on the day of the protest. The charges do not specify the distance between the children and the soldiers, but the charge includes the accusation that the stones were thrown to injure the soldiers near the wall. The charges were ready on 27 March 2005. On that day the children were taken to the military court to renew their arrest, so that they could be held for longer. The prosecutor refused to reach an agreement with the children's lawyer, in response to orders to be stricter with the cases regarding the wall. In court the first charge of throwing stones in the past was dropped, however the second charge remained. This second charge was altered though from stone throwing with a slingshot to one of just throwing stones. The maximum set penalty that a military court can give for throwing stones by hand at a stationary target is 10 years – however such sentences are rarely passed – instead if the stone throwing results in injury the charges levelled are usually boosted to attempting to kill. In cases where no injuries are caused, the usual penalty is a couple of months imprisonment. In this case the prosecutor asked the judge to sentence the children to seven months in prison. The defence lawyer requested release. The judge in this case sentenced both of the children to a three-month prison sentence and a two-month suspended sentences and demanded a 1000 NIS fine from each of the children. An appeal hearing was held on 20 April 2005. Both defence and prosecutor made their requests. The prosecutor wanted to increase the sentence to the full seven months while the defence lawyer called for the children's immediate release. The appeal court judge pronounced that a longer sentence of around five months would have been more appropriate as the charges were related to offences against the wall. However, he ultimately ruled against increasing the sentence on the basis that there was not a substantial difference to three and five months. In the end the judge refused both lawyers' requests.

Comparative Case Study Fifteen-year old Abdallah is from Beit Jala near Bethlehem. He was arrested on 11 April 2005 when soldiers found him by a hole in a wire fence which runs alongside a bypass road frequently used by settlers. Abdallah was taken to Gush Etzion detention centre south of Bethlehem for interrogation. During interrogation he confessed that, when arrested, he had in his possession wire cutters, but he insisted at first that he had cut a hole in the fence to reach his dog which was on the other side. Later however, he changed his confession, admitting that he had thrown stones at Israeli cars travelling on the main highway from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The maximum set penalty that a military court can give for throwing stones at a moving target is 20 years – indicating that the offence is considered significantly more serious than one of throwing stones at a stationary object. Just over a week after he was arrested, Abdallah was brought to court, where an agreement was reached between the defence and the prosecutor to drop the charge of damaging the wire fence. The charge of stone throwing remained however, and Abdallah was sentenced to one and a half months in prison.

Discrepancies in Sentencing

The cases of Ziad and Noor and Abdallah were heard in the same military court, during the same period, concerning the same offences, allegedly committed by children the same age. In the first case the stones were allegedly aimed at well-armed soldiers with helmets and protective clothing defending a concrete wall. Neither the wall nor the soldiers were at any great risk from the stones. The second case involved stones being thrown at settlers driving their vehicles along the road. These settlers could easily have been injured and their property damaged by the stones. Nevertheless, because they were charged with offences related to the construction of the wall, Ziad and Noor were punished with longer sentences. It must of course be remembered that two more months in prison makes a significant difference to a child of 15 or 16.

What Needs to Change? Children involved in peaceful protest against the Wall should never be subjected to tear gassing, violence or intimidation at the hands of soldiers, nor be arrested. Children involved in stone throwing or violent acts during protests against the wall should only be arrested as a measure of last resort, and should never be compelled to confess to guilt, and should only be detained for the shortest possible period of time, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel, as State Party, and also clearly in this context exercising jurisdiction over Palestinian children, is obliged to uphold. These children should not receive especially severe sentences because of their involvement in protest against the wall; this is creating inequalities and establishing priorities in the administration of justice according to the political and ideological will of the Israeli government. On the contrary, Israel has the duty to take the child's age and situation into account, in determining the matter. As such, the courts should consider the devastating impacts the wall is having on children, their families and their villages, when sentencing a child for their participation in any form of protest against the wall.

Palestinian children detained by Israel (October 2005)

Telmond
Boys:	170
Girls	5
Ofek Hasharon
Boys	3
Ramle
Prison Hospital	1
Megiddo
Boys	40
Ofer Military Camp
Boys	55
Ketziot Military Camp
Boys (including boys in administrative detention)	35 5
Interrogation and Detention Centres
Russian Compound Etzion (Detention and Interrogation Centre) Benjamin (Inside Ofer Prison) Kadumim Huwwara Jalame Salem Petah Tikva (Interrogation Centre) Askelan (Interrogation Centre)	3 6 14 5 0 3 0 2 0
Total Children Detainees	347