Video: Settlers cheer as Israeli soldiers attack disabled Palestinian child

This disturbing footage shot by Palestinian videographer Samih Da’na and published by the Israeli nongovernmental organization B’Tselem documents the violent abuse of a developmentally disabled Palestinian child.

As Israeli occupation soldiers abuse the child, settlers and their children cheer and shout abuse at Palestinians.

Da’na shot the footage on 19 October from his home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, whose Palestinian residents are relentlessly targeted by occupation army and settler violence.

According to B’Tselem’s description of the video, “soldiers are seen holding the boy, handcuffing him, blindfolding him and closing him in the jeep, despite cries by Palestinian residents that the boy is mentally disabled. The footage also shows settlers from Kiryat Arba, watching the incident from behind the settlement’s fence. Some are seen calling out encouragement to the soldiers, including several racist remarks.”

Kiryat Arba, an illegal colony adjacent to Hebron, is home to some of the most notoriously racist and violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

In the description of the video, B’Tselem says that the occupation soldiers detained “a developmentally disabled Palestinian boy, who is under the age of criminal responsibility, on suspicion that he had thrown stones.”

“The boy, A. a-Rajbi (full name withheld in interest of privacy), who will be twelve in a month, was detained after Palestinian children threw stones at soldiers on the main road of the Jabel Johar neighborhood in Hebron, close to the settlement of Kiryat Arba,” B’Tselem says.

The boy was “handcuffed, blindfolded, and held on the floor of an army jeep for some fifteen minutes until his father arrived and convinced the soldiers to release his son, who is mentally disabled and cannot speak.”

While Palestinian youths do throw stones at heavily armed occupation soldiers as a form of community self-defense, protest and resistance, stone-throwing is also frequently a trumped-up charge used to extract confessions under torture and intimidate Palestinian children and youths into becoming informants.

Israel is the only country in the world that subjects children – and only Palestinian children – to military tribunals.

Also of note: At one point in the video, one of the settlers’ children appears to be holding an object that looks like a handgun (far left of the screenshot below). It is unclear from the footage if it is real or a toy:

Comments

Is the settler's child holding a gun?

Permalink JT replied on Tue, 10/21/2014 - 14:35

The settler's child *is* the gun.

Is there a resource that

Permalink Zach Faircloth replied on Tue, 10/21/2014 - 19:50

Is there a resource that tells what the settlers are saying?

It's surreal. So much

Permalink Daria Dolley replied on Tue, 10/21/2014 - 20:40

It's surreal. So much hatred and I'll intent... its unfathomable... are we 1 species?? of the same race?? How disgusted I am to be called human... i am ashamed to be part of this race!!!

iINFO----BASIC INFO....

Permalink Peter Loeb replied on Wed, 10/22/2014 - 09:48

Somewhere in the haze of my memory an innner voice keeps
whispering that the vote (where, what part of UN etc. and who(nations))
agreed to membership in the UN for Israel PROVIDED that:

Israel follow agreements of the UN.

Where does it say that (document)???

What did those who lobbied for Israeli membership present as the BORDERS
of the State of Israel then applying for membership. (I doubt it
presented any at all but instead was added to "dunam by dunam"(Israeli saying)
as more and more of Palestine was added to Israel---according to
Israel!!!---through brutal conquest, murder, massacre, rape. corced
disposses etc.

The point here is: The precise borders of the applying state should be
absolutely clear. Not dependent on some future so-called
"negotiations" over which Israel and the US have a veto as to time,
place, substance. ONLY that portion included in Israel should be
accepted as a "state". Eg. If Tel Aviv, then NOT Jaffa which was conquered.
Jaffa and many other cities and villages would be in the State of Palestine.
Jeruselum itself would be under international control, not part of one
state as originally envisioned.

The Knesset has no jurisdiction whatsoever to annex any settlements
anywhere. These belong to the State of Palestine.

I personally would strongly suggest free elections in Palestine including
ALL parties (no matter their view of Israel) with no interruption or
intelligence etc. by any foreign state. No pre-agreements with Israel.
(Representatives of Hamas could legally stand for election with no
interference, assasination. targetting etc.)

The details of monitoring should be unbiased, report to UN, not be
based on any commitment to any "two-state solution". Those are
issues to be decided upon not by the UN, the US, or Israel but by
those standing for election. And, of course, the Palestinian electorate.

-----Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

The disabled.

Permalink Sean Breathnach replied on Wed, 10/22/2014 - 14:09

With each atrocity against the Palestine people. To ease my pain, I listen to 'A Lament For Jerusalem '. And even though I don't understand the language, the words enter my soul.

Lament words

Permalink Peter Crawford replied on Fri, 10/24/2014 - 20:37

Sean, when we recorded Lament for Jerusalem, I knew about the indignity of checkpoints and the bias of travel restrictions and land and water permits, but videos like this show an even uglier side of the conflict. Thank you to those who are showing the world what is going on. The bits about Mirrors and Love in Rumi's Masnavi are particularly relevant http://archive.org/stream/Masn...