’Israel’ Sentences a 13-year-old Palestinian Girl to Prison!

Local Editor

This week, a 13-year-old girl was sentenced and told to pay an unimaginable fine - and if not, her mother will be sent to jail for up to seven months.

They're not even sure of the exact date of her arrest. They only remember that it was on a Wednesday nearly a month ago. [It was March 23.] They also had a hard time finding a photograph of the girl referred to as S.

But now S. is not home. She is in Sharon Prison. A 13-year-old girl, in the seventh grade, she is an inmate in an "Israeli" jail. Last Thursday, S. was sentenced to four-and-a-half months in prison and a fine of 7,000 shekels [$1,860]. If the fine is not paid - and for this family it's an absolutely unimaginable amount - S.'s mother, Amna Takatka, will be sent to jail for up to seven months: one month for every 1,000 unpaid shekels, for what her daughter did. That was the sentence handed down by military judge Lt. Col. Ami Navon...

In Beit Fajjar, known for its stonemasonry, everything is covered in dust - the streets, the cars, the clothes people wear and the air they breathe. S.'s home is located very close to the industrial area where the stonemasons are concentrated, at the town's entrance, where her father works as a stonecutter. Amna, 45, mother of six children, sits on a mattress in the living room. All she knows about her daughter at the moment is that she's incarcerated in Sharon Prison.

On the day of her arrest, S. went to school as usual. She then came home, ate lunch and helped her mother with housework and with preparations for a special supper with the family of her aunt. S. then served tea to the guests, at her mother's request. She placed the glasses of tea on the table and disappeared.

She was distraught, her mother recalls now: She'd been in a highly emotional state for the whole week, since two residents of her town, Ali al-Kar and Ali Takatka, were martyred on March 17. S. watched the reports of their assassination on television. The former was the brother of a classmate, the latter a member of her own extended family. Their killing shocked S. deeply.

Her classmates related that S. said she hates "Israel" for and wanted to avenge their death. Her grandfather saw her leave the house and run toward the road that leads out of town, but wasn't able to stop her. It was early evening. He said afterward that her face was flushed and that she seemed to be holding back tears. He did not see a knife in her hand.

An improvised "Israeli" Forces checkpoint had been set up on the main street.

According to eyewitnesses, S. was a few dozen meters from the soldiers. It would later be alleged that she was holding a knife ["a particularly long one"]. She apparently also threw stones. A few locals tried to calm her down and put her into a car, to take her away. But the soldiers ran after her and arrested her before the vehicle could pull away.

Her father says he got a phone call that evening from the "Israeli" police, informing him that his daughter had been detained. Her mother saw her a few days later at a hearing in a courtroom on the Ofer base, near Ramallah. It looked to her as though S.'s face was sickly and yellowish. S., who was handcuffed, burst into tears when she saw her mother crying. Her mother has not seen her since. A prison visit will not be allowed for another three months, S.'s mother was told...

That same day "Israeli" soldiers arrested another child, a boy, a few streets from S.'s home; making it another family with a child in jail. It's a more affluent home. Zeinab Takatka shows her son's handsome room, all in light blue, the walls and the bed, and can't stop crying. Her 14-year-old son, M., was arrested at school last Thursday. His friends brought her his schoolbag and told her that soldiers had arrived and arrested M. and another boy, who has since been released. M.'s trial has not yet been held.

His mother says now that some local children told her that they were playing soccer when the soldiers made the arrest. It's very possible that stone throwing took place: Maybe that's exactly why soldiers raid the premises while the children are in school or are leaving the grounds. Zeinab is convinced that her son was arrested because he's the biggest boy in the class. His 4-year-old sister, Fatima, and his 3-year-old brother, Osama, keep asking about him. And again, Zeinab breaks down.

Asked to comment on the arrests of M. and the other boy, the "Israeli" Forces Spokesman told Haaretz that on April 7, "army forces identified youths, including the subject of the inquiry, burning tires on the outskirts of Beit Fajjar, for the purpose of provocation. The forces arrived at the site, and caught the two youths with the lighters still in their hands. The youths were turned over to the security forces."

Source: Haaretz, Edited by website team