The five Hares boys

Earlier this month, I received an invitation from the International Women's Peace Service (IWPS) to join their team of international human rights observers and accompaniers in the olive-growing Salfit district of occupied Palestine, in a village called Hares.

There, the IWPS team has a base from which it non-violently accompanies Palestinian farmers who work and live in the region and wherever necessary, intervenes or record any human rights abuse witnessed, either by written or photographic documentations.

Currently, the IWPS team accompanies the trial and legal proceedings of five Palestinian boys from Hares, who are being tried before an Israeli military court for charges of attempted murder for throwing stones.

**

The narrative began on Thursday March 14, 2013, when a car crashed at around 6.30pm into the back of a truck on Road 5 in Salfit, injuring the driver and her three daughters.

The driver claimed that the accident was due to Palestinian youths throwing stones at her car. Aside from the two drivers and the three daughters, there were no other witnesses to the car accident nor had anybody witnessed children or youth throwing stones on that day.

By very early morning of Friday, masked Israeli soldiers with attack dogs had stormed the village of Hares and arrested ten boys, blindfolded and handcuffed.

In the next few days to the following week, several more adolescents were arrested, totalling 19 from the villages of Hares and Kife Hares (neighbouring villages) arrested in relation to the settler car accident, none of them with a previous history of stone-throwing.

After several violent interrogations, most were released except for five Hares boys – aged between 16 and 17 – who remain until today in Megiddo, an Israeli adult prison.

They are charged with 20 counts of attempted murder (one count per every alleged stone thrown at passing cars), a charge that carries a maximum punishment of twenty years to life imprisonment.

**

The case of the prosecution relies on the confessions of the Hares boys, obtained after repeatedly being abused in prison and during interrogations, as well as 61 witnesses that came forward as a result of a massive media coverage of the event where the Israeli president denounced the case as a terrorist act.

If convicted, this case will set a legal precedent in which an Israeli court would be able to convict any Palestinian minors for attempted murder in cases of stone-throwing.

Several issues come into play upon reading this narrative. Can witnesses be gathered through wide media coverage and publicity of the event as a terrorist act?

Can youths be tried in a military court under military laws as adults? Is it within the due process of the law to detain minors without the presence of adults? Can minors be put into prison for days, months, or years, all before even reaching a guilty verdict?

Reading the invitation to join the IWPS team, to have the privilege to accompany the process and to independently witness the case and judge for myself how the system of justice is applied in Israel and occupied Palestine, all these thoughts came to mind.

I do not know if I could accept the invitation (to enter the area would mean first crossing into the Israeli border – a place into which the Malaysian passport officially prohibits entry). But at the very least, for now, I have the power of sharing their narrative. – November 3, 2015.

* The International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) is a team of human rights volunteers, based in the village of Deir Istiya, Salfit district, occupied Palestine, that supports Palestinian and Israeli anti-occupation groups in their grassroots resistance to end the brutal and illegal military occupation. IWPS opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.