Ex-soldiers admit to appalling violence against Palestinian children
Hafez Rajabi was marked for life by his encounter with the men of the
Israeli army's Kfir Brigade five years ago this week. Sitting beneath
the photograph of his late father, the slightly built 21-year-old in
jeans and trainers points to the scar above his right eye where he was
hit with the magazine of a soldier's assault rifle after the patrol came
for him at his grandmother's house before 6am on 28 August 2007.
He lifts his black Boss T-shirt to show another scar running some
three inches down his back from the left shoulder when he says he was
violently pushed – twice – against a sharp point of the cast-iron
balustrade beside the steps leading up to the front door. And all that
before he says he was dragged 300m to another house by a unit commander
who threatened to kill him if he did not confess to throwing stones at
troops, had started to beat him again, and at one point held a gun to
his head. "He was so angry," says Hafez. "I was certain that he was
going to kill me."For the past eight years, Breaking the Silence has been taking testimonies from former soldiers who witnessed or participated in human rights abuses in the occupied territories. Most of these accounts deal with "rough justice" administered to minors by soldiers on the ground, often without specific authorisation and without recourse to the military courts. Reading them, however, it's hard not to recall the Sedley report's shocked reference to the "belief, which was advanced to us by a military prosecutor, that every Palestinian child is a 'potential terrorist'".
The soldier puts it differently: "We were sort of indifferent. It becomes a kind of habit. Patrols with beatings happened on a daily basis. We were really going at it. It was enough for you to give us a look that we didn't like, straight in the eye, and you'd be hit on the spot. We got to such a state and were so sick of being there."
Yet, there is a pro Israeli American blog (for which I will not provide a link) whose contributors voice no objections to indefinite dentition without charge or trial of Palestinians and who believe Israel has the right to imprison children for throwing rocks at Israeli military equipment.
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