Video shows nightly brutality of Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem

This video, published by the Independent Media Center (IMC) (imcpal.ps), shows Israeli forces roughing up and arresting youths in the walled-in eastern occupied Jerusalem village of al-Eizariya early this morning.

A report accompanying the video – that names the detained individuals – says that the Israeli forces “kidnapped two young men and two children during confrontations between the occupation forces and village youth” near the Israeli wall that separates al-Eizariya from the rest of Jerusalem.

Several youths were treated for light to moderate injuries.

The report states that Israeli forces “beat the youths as they took them inside the wall .. and the sounds of screams of pain could be heard from behind the wall for more than half an hour after the arrest. The crying child was screaming ‘I am not with them, I didn’t do anything.’”

“Wall of starvation and apartheid”

According to the report, the confrontation began when “occupation forces accompanied by agents dressed as Arabs (mustaarabin) invaded the village home of Muhammad Adwan and arrested him after breaking down the doors.”

Al-Eizariya “witnesses almost daily clashes with the occupation” by youths “rising up against the wall of starvation and apartheid” that separates the village from the adjacent village of Abu Dis and “from its mother city Jerusalem.”

Since Israel began building the wall a decade ago, the report adds, it has caused “workers and businesses to lose their livelihoods and greatly increased unemployment and poverty in al-Eizariya and Abu Dis.”

Al-Eizariya is traditionally believed to be the biblical Bethany and its Arabic name means “place of Lazarus” – a reference to the person the Bible says Jesus raised from the dead.

The poverty rate in eastern occupied Jerusalem areas isolated by the Israeli-built wall has shot up to 78 percent, according to a 2012 study.

Patrick O. Strickland also reported recently that thousands of Jerusalem children are denied basic services by Israel’s system of apartheid in the city.

Thirteen Palestinians were arrested in night raids across the occupied West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.