About 15 Israeli soldiers kidnapped a Palestinian child in al-Khalil city a few days ago and forced him to accompany them for about one hour in search for stone throwers although he was not a resident of the area a human rights group said.
According to information received by B’Tselem human rights center in Israel eight-year-old Sufyan Abu Hitah was wandering on March 19 2017 barefoot outside his grandparents’ house in al-Khalil looking for a toy he had lost when a group of at least 15 soldiers seized him.
Then two soldiers grabbed the boy by the arms and dragged him to the al-Harika neighborhood where they told him to point out children who had allegedly thrown stones and a Molotov cocktail at the Kiryat Arba settlement earlier in the day.
That day Sufyan’s mother Amani Abu Hitah was visiting her parents’ home in the neighborhood with her two youngest sons. She asked Sufyan to pick his six-year-old brother Muhammad up from school and bring him to the grandparents’ house. Sufyan and Muhammad arrived at about 1:30 pm. After Sufyan took off his shoes he realized that he had lost a toy he had bought on the way. His mother who had heard that soldiers were patrolling the neighborhood forbade him to go outside but he sneaked out to look for the toy.
A few minutes later children from the neighborhood came to the house and told Amani that soldiers had seized her son and were leading him toward the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba.
May D’ana 25 married with two children is a B’Tselem volunteer who lives in the neighborhood and captured the incident on video. In testimony taken on 21 March 2017 by B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja’bri May stated:
On Sunday 19 March 2017 while I was making lunch my brother-in-law who lives in the apartment below mine telephoned me and told me that soldiers had seized a little boy. He asked me to film what was happening. I took my camera and quickly went to a window that overlooks the street. I saw some soldiers about 12 two of whom were holding a little boy who must have been no older than eight. They ran with him to the gate of Kiryat Arba. I heard one of the soldiers asking the boy in Arabic to give him the names of children who had thrown stones and a Molotov cocktail at the settlement. The boy was crying and very scared. He tried to convince the soldiers that he didn’t know anything. I noticed that he didn’t have any shoes on only socks.
In a testimony she gave to B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja’bri on March 21 2017 Amani Abu Hitah the mother described what happened when she went out to the street looking for her son:
I saw more than fifteen soldiers surrounding Sufyan. Two of them were holding him by both arms and dragging him towards the gate of Kiryat Arba. A few neighbors had already gathered in the street and were trying to rescue Sufyan from the soldiers.
I went up to one of the soldiers and asked him to give me back my son. He refused and said: “If you want to get him back convince him to tell us the names of the children who were throwing stones.” I tried to explain that we do not live in the neighborhood and were just visiting my parents. I told the soldier that Sufyan does not know the names of the neighborhood kids. He ignored me and the soldiers kept on dragging Sufyan by the arms. First they took him in the direction of Kiryat Arba and then towards the street that leads to the Jabal Juhar area.
Sufyan was shaking with fear. I saw him talk to the soldiers and tell them that he does not know anything but it didn’t help. The soldiers dragged him along and made him enter Muhammad a-Nahnush’s house with them. When they came out about five minutes later Sufyan was crying. They did not arrest anyone in that house. I do not know whether they beat Sufyan while they were in there or what happened inside. I was really scared and worried about Sufyan. I started crying and ran after the soldiers as they moved from house to house to try and get them to let him go. I saw them take him into Ashraf Abu Ghazaleh’s house. They came out a few minutes later.
The soldiers then dragged Sufyan to Jabal Juhar Street where a woman tried to pull him from their hands. Meanwhile more women gathered around the soldiers. Eventually more than an hour after the incident began they managed to extricate Sufyan and return him to his mother.
Two residents of the neighborhood one of them B’Tselem volunteer May D’ana captured the incident on video.
