Israeli soldiers ‘torture Palestinian children'

Israeli soldiers have been accused of torturing Palestinian children in accounts by the victims “confirmed” by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC), the group revealed on Sunday.

According to Arabs48.com, the PPC reported that 15 year-old Ammar Tawifq Abu-Hilal from Dura near the West Bank city of Hebron, said that he was “severely tortured” during his detention by the Israelis. A PPC lawyer said that Abu-Hilal claimed that Israeli soldiers “beat him harshly and grabbed his neck” when they arrested him earlier this month.

“When I told them [the Israeli soldiers] that I am sick and take injections regularly in my hands, they tightened the bonds around my hands,” the boy told the lawyer inside Israel’s notorious Ofer Prison. “They took me to a watchtower and continued to beat me. They forced me to confess that I threw stones at them then left me for about two hours in direct sunlight. I had no food or drink for 12 hours.”

The boy, who is still being held in prison, suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and thrombosis. He needs intravenous injections twice a day.

Jihad Eliyan, 16, from Al-Jalazoun Refugee Camp in the occupied West Bank, claims that he was also tortured by the Israelis during his detention on 31 October. The PPC lawyer who visited him in prison reported that when the boy told the Israeli soldiers who arrested him that he had broken toes they increased their beating of his legs and feet.

“They continued beating me on my legs until my ankle was broken,” said Eliyan. “Then, I was taken to Ofer Prison and was treated at Hadasa Hospital.”