Feature: Palestinian child detained for "intention" to stab Israeli soldier

The family members of Mohamed Abu Turki, a 16-year-old Palestinian child from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, are so much worried and concerned as he has been in an Israeli jail for more than three weeks and hasn't been released yet.

Their concern grew when the boy's lawyer, Kareem Ajwah, informed them that the Israeli authorities had decided to charge him for his intensions "to stab an Israeli soldier in the future." Ajwa said it is an odd kind of charge in the Israeli military court that leaves the question of sentencing him unknown.

An Israeli army force arrested Abu Turki from his house in Oct. 30, after a raid in the middle of the night and searching into its contents. The boy's uncle, Mahamad Abu Turki, told Xinhua that the family can't find any logic explanation for keeping the boy in prison and accusing him of thinking to carry out an attack in the future.

"Mohamed has never participated before in any demonstration or clashes," said the uncle. "Such Israel authorities' accusations are funny and can never be justified." No one was able to visit the boy in prison except his lawyer Ajwa.

"He told me that he faced physical attacks and ill words during the interrogation depending on the Israeli interrogators' expectations that the boy was thinking to carry out a tabbing attack against Israeli soldiers in the future," Ajwa told Xinhua after he met with Mohamed in prison.

"The Israeli army attorney chart of charges is seriously comic and it is part of the Israeli unprecedented escalation against the Palestinians, mainly children and juveniles," said the Palestinian lawyer.

As the world marks the World Child's Day on Friday, several Palestinian official and public associations have been complaining over unprecedented Israeli violations against Palestinian children, such as killing, wounding and detaining them. These measures come amid an ongoing wave of tension between Palestinians and Israelis that began in early October.

The tension has deteriorated into violent confrontations in the Palestinian territories. According to the Palestinian health ministry, 89 Palestinians have been killed and more than 3,000 wounded, while Israeli media say 14 Israelis were killed in stabbing and shooting attacks.

Among the killed Palestinians were 18 children, according to the Global Movement for Children, a world-wide movement dedicated to build a world fit for children, and that does not include five more killed by the Israeli army earlier this year before the violence even broke out.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Corporation, the Israeli army has detained around 1,000 Palestinian children under the age of 16 since early October, including five wounded. Other rights groups accused Israel of interrogating one of the wounded children while he was handcuffed at the hospital.

Ahmed Manasra, 14 years old from east Jerusalem, was arrested and interrogated under heavy psychological questioning and cursing by the Israeli interrogators. The video of the interrogation has brought large condemnation and protest among the Palestinians.

Eassa Qaraqe'a, the chief of the Palestinian Prisoners' Corporation, accused the Israeli authorities for committing heavy violations of the international law in the way they treat those Palestinian children, either in detaining them or questioning them. He said "90 percent of the imprisoned children were heavily forced to make confessions."

"The Israeli government is violating Geneva Conventions and the international treaty for children's rights by putting the Palestinian children under heavy physical and psychological interrogation and torture," Qaraqe'a told Xinhua. "These measures are badly affecting children's life and future."

According to the prisoners' corporation, some 500 to 700 Palestinian children aged 12 years old are taken to Israeli courts for throwing stones.

Ayed Abu Qtiesh, a member in the international movement to defend children, told Xinhua that "86 percent of children arrested by the Israeli soldiers were physically tortured." Endit