Nighttime Israeli raids traumatize Palestinian children, families

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Yousef Mesheh was sleeping in his bunk bed when Israeli forces stormed into his home at 3 a.m.

Within moments, the 15-year-old Palestinian said he was lying on the floor as troops punched him, shouting insults. A soldier struck his mother’s chest with his rifle butt and locked her in the bedroom, where she screamed for her sons.

Yousef and his 16-yearold brother, Wael, were hauled out of their home in Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank. Yousef was in a sleeveless undershirt and couldn’t see without his glasses.

“I can’t forget that night,” Yousef told The Associated Press from his living room, decorated with photos of Wael, who remains in detention. “When I go to sleep I still hear the shooting and screaming.”

The Israeli military arrested and interrogated hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in 2022 in the occupied West Bank, without ever issuing a summons or notifying their families, according to an upcoming report by the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.

The charges against those being arrested ranged from being in Israel without a permit to throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. Some teens say they were arrested to obtain information about neighbors or family members.

In the vast majority of the military’s pre-planned arrests of minors last year, children were taken from their homes in the dead of the night, HaMoked said. After being yanked out of bed, children as young as 14 were interrogated while sleepdeprived and disoriented. Water, food and access to toilets were often withheld. Yousef said soldiers beat him when he asked to relieve himself during his seven-hour journey to the detention center.

The Israeli army argues it has the legal authority to arrest minors at its discretion during late-night raids.