West Bank: When the Israeli army stormed the house of Yousef Mesheh at three in the morning, he was sleeping in his cot.
The 15-year-old Palestinian claimed that after only a few seconds, the soldiers punched and cursed at him as he lay on the ground. A soldier locked his mother in the bedroom while she screamed for her sons, then stabbed her in the chest with the butt of a rifle.
Yousef and his 16-year-old brother Wail were dragged from their home in the northern West Bank refugee camp of Balata. Yousef was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and needed his glasses to see.
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Yousef, speaking to The Associated Press from his living room, which is decorated with pictures of Vail, who is still in custody, said, "I will never forget that night."
Israeli human rights group Hamokid will soon release a report detailing how the Israeli army detained and interrogated hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West Bank in 2022 without ever issuing summons or notifying their families .
Charges against those who were detained included Molotov cocktails and stone-throwing, in addition to being in Israel without authorization. Some teenagers claim that they were detained in order to learn information about their neighbors or relatives.
According to Hamocade, most of the military's premeditated arrests of minors last year involved children being taken from their homes in the middle of the night.
During interrogation children as young as 14 were dragged out of bed and subjected to sleep deprivation and confusion. Access to water, food and restrooms was often denied.
During his seven-hour visit to the detention facility, Yousef claimed that soldiers beat him when he requested to use the restroom.
The Israeli military claims it has the legal right to arbitrarily detain minors during nighttime raids. Lawyers and advocates claim that the strategy violates Israel's legal obligations to inform parents about alleged violations of their children. "We demanded that night-time kidnapping be the last option,
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The rights organization claimed that some reform had taken place two years earlier, when the Israeli government requested that the military ask parents to bring their children in for questioning, in response to a petition to the Supreme Court by HaMoked.
However, statistics provided to the Supreme Court show that the military rarely summons Palestinian parents to interrogate their children.
In the nearly 300 cases tracked by Hamocade in the West Bank last year, not a single family received a summons. Minor crimes and situations in which children were let off without charge, such as in Yousef's case, were not the exception. Hamokade claimed that the statistics are inaccurate because it thinks that many instances of similar cases go unreported.
According to Ayad Abu Ektash, Defense for Children International's accountability program director in the Palestinian territories, they are not following a process they developed themselves. The idea that children are fearful and tired during interrogation is part of interrogation philosophy.
In response to a request for comment, the Israeli military said it seeks to conscript Palestinian children who are only suspected of having committed minor crimes and who have no prior record of conviction for serious crimes.
The military countered that the policy did not apply to serious crimes or instances in which "calling someone under investigation would defeat its purpose."
However, the army claimed that Yousef's brother Waal is accused of "serious financial crimes", including "contacting the enemy," "illegally bringing in money," and supporting "an illegal organization." The army declined to comment on Yousuf's arrest.
These allegations usually refer to incidents where Palestinians spoke with residents of the Gaza Strip, which is governed by Hamas.
Hamocade found that most cases were quickly dropped, but late-night arrests stayed with children for a very long time.
Youssef's mother, Hanadi Mesheh, told the AP that since his arrest on Nov. 7, Youssef "hasn't been the same." He has trouble focusing in class. He stopped playing football.
Some nights, she hides beside him and holds him when he has nightmares. Yousef said, “I feel like I am always being watched. When my mother wakes me up in the morning to go to school, I am scared.
There are many similar stories around. The city of Nablus in the north became a hotbed of violence last year after Israel launched a crackdown in the West Bank in response to a wave of Palestinian attacks in Israel.
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According to the Israeli rights organisation B'Tselem, Israeli forces killed at least 146 Palestinians last year, including 34 children, making 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in 18 years.
The majority of Palestinians killed, according to the Israeli army, were militants. Youths who were not involved in the altercations or protesting the incursions have also died. At least 31 Israelis were killed by Palestinian attacks last year.
According to Israel, the operations are intended to destroy militant networks and prevent further attacks. The raids have been denounced by the Palestinians as collective punishment intended to solidify Israel's ongoing, 55-year occupation of territories they want for a future state. The West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip were all taken by Israel during the Middle East conflict of 1967.
Not just in the West Bank are nighttime arrest raids conducted. Additionally, Israeli police frequently conduct raids in east Jerusalem's Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Rania Elias heard banging on the door in the early hours of the morning last autumn in the Beit Hanina neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Shadi Khoury, her youngest son, who is 16 years old, was snoozing in his underwear.
Israeli police stormed into their house, knocked Khoury to the ground, and beat him. She claimed that as police dragged him to a detention facility in Jerusalem for questioning, there was blood all over.
You can't even begin to imagine how helpless you feel to save your child, Elias said.
According to the Israeli police, who responded to a request for comment, Khoury was charged with being a member of a group that threw stones at a Jewish family's car on October 12 and injured a passenger.
Parents claim they are more concerned than ever about their children under the new ultra-nationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli settlers who promise to take a tough stance against the Palestinians include some of the most powerful ministers.
The activist Murad Shitawi, whose 17-year-old son Khaled was detained in a nighttime raid on their home in the West Bank town of Kfar Qaddum last March, said, "This is the darkest moment." I'm concerned about my sons.