What drives a person to pull out a screwdriver and attack a heavily armed, highly trained, well-protected soldier, knowing full well that if he is injured, no ambulance will come to save him, and if he is lucky, he will spend the best years of his life behind bars? Thaer Abu Ghazaleh from Shuafat Refugee Camp and other minors have been doing this for years.

The Israeli army, officially known as the Israel Defense Forces, has been occupying the West Bank for more than fifty years - international laws, UN resolutions, civil society appeals, and even negotiations have failed to convince the occupiers to leave. On the contrary, the occupiers constantly repeat that this occupied land - according to international law - was given to them by God, that it has been theirs for thousands of years, that they are staying there forever, and that there has never been such a thing as a "Palestinian people."

Israeli authorities continue to seize Palestinian land, build illegal settlements, seize water sources, and destroy the livelihoods of Palestinians, especially farmers. They also build advanced Jewish-only highways and erect hundreds of military checkpoints on Palestinian roads. These roads are old and bumpy, and Palestinians are driven through them like cattle for hours on end. The separation wall extends 770 kilometers into Palestinian territory, forcing Palestinians to live in only 6% of the West Bank.

Imagine a 16-year-old who has lived his entire life under occupation, never left the country, and has seen his family members killed, arrested, or forced to leave. Given this reality, does it seem illogical that this boy would attack a heavily armed adult man with a screwdriver or a kitchen knife, or throw a rock at his executioner?

The Israeli occupier has a very particular interpretation of this scene. According to his version, these teenagers are "terrorists" from "broken families," lured by money, incited by "terrorist organizations," and encouraged by the "leniency of Israeli democracy" and the "flexibility of the judicial system," even though the Israeli authorities demolish their families' homes, often leaving them to bleed to death.

Palestinian children in occupation prisons

In 2018, the Israeli organization B'Tselem reported that 220 Palestinian minors were detained in Israeli prisons. All of these children, according to a 2018 Human Rights Watch report, are tried in military courts, which have a conviction rate of approximately 100%. According to statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Information, a Palestinian child has been killed by Israel every three days for the past 13 years. Issa Qaraqe, former Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs, stated that since 1948, Israel has killed more than two million Palestinian children. In 2017, according to Human Rights Watch, Israel destroyed 381 homes and other property and forcibly displaced 588 people as of November 6 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post reported that more than 60 children have been born using sperm smuggled from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Collective punishment is not limited to imprisoning Palestinians and preventing them from having children; it extends to destroying their homes, displacing their children, and leaving them without any social or economic support.

Now more than ever, religion plays a central role in Israeli politics. The current Israeli reality cannot be better described than the words of the prophet Isaiah, who predicted the fall of the sinful kingdom of Judah:

"Behold, the hand of the Lord is not short that it should not save, and His ear is not heavy that it should not hear... Their feet run to wickedness, and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, in their ways they rape and crush. The way of peace is not known to them, and there is no justice in their paths. They have made for themselves crooked paths, and whoever walks in them knows no peace."
Source: Middle East Monitor