Ronnie's Blog

Imagine being thrown out of your home so that people from another country can move in. Or, being forced to demolish your house, because people from another country want the land for themselves.

Imagine just walking along the road and being beaten with sticks and then incarcerated.

Imagine a forcible entry into your home in the middle of the night and your children being abducted and brutalised. What hurts a parent more, suffering brutality, or their child being brutalised?

Imagine being a child, on your way to school and being arrested by occupying Israeli soldiers in Palestine.

A Save the Children consultation showed that:

• 81% endured physical beatings and 89% suffered verbal abuse.
• 52% were threatened with harm to their families.
• 86% were subjected to strip searches, leaving them humiliated and ashamed.
• 88% did not receive adequate and timely healthcare, even when explicitly requested.
• Almost half (47%) were denied contact with a lawyer.

“Children as young as twelve have told us about truly inhumane treatment in the Israeli military detention system. There is no possible justification for setting dogs on children, beating them, or shackling them to metal chairs. Whatever they are accused of, regardless of guilt or innocence, these children must be treated first and foremost as children – with all the special protections this entails.

“Israel’s system of military juvenile detention is state-sponsored child abuse designed to intimidate and terrorise Palestinian children and their families.”

– Congresswoman Betty McCollum