Boys in jail

"I thought that it was an earthquake," said Mariam, a mother of one of the boys arrested in one of the villages surrounding Bethlehem. The night that the army came for her son, the barrage of noise created by the army made her think that a natural disaster was occurring. Except this disaster was not natural; it's a reality of life under military occupation.

This past week, we talked with three families who experienced night incursions and who had sons taken into custody by the army. These were just three families of the seven in this village who have had sons arrested in the past two weeks. Of the eight boys (two sons from one family), only one has been released; the rest await a court date.

Lo'y is 16. He's a studious kid who is smart and who wants to go to the university to study engineering. He's been in 11th grade this year and was getting ready to take special classes this summer to get ready for his last year in school which includes the difficult exams one has to take in order to have a chance for University.

On Thursday morning at 2am, four army jeeps came to Lo'y's house, and the soldiers surrounded the house. They banged on the front door and fired off sound bombs (or "stun grenades": the noise is so loud that it stuns you). Then, they fired tear gas canisters at the house breaking the window of the bedroom of the younger brother of Lo'y and damaging the stone facing and some of the doors in an effort to evacuate the family (since the family wasn't getting out of the house fast enough for the army). The tear gas in the house was so noxious, that they had to stay outside until morning to allow the tear gas to dissipate.

Once they were all out of the house, the soldiers grabbed Lo'y, handcuffed and blindfolded him and hit him in the back of his head with the butt end of a machine gun. The soldiers demanded that Lo'y give them the address of one of his friends, but he refused, earning himself another beating.

The charges against this young man? Throwing stones at army jeeps. Lo'y's mother and father both asserted that Lo'y is too afraid of soldiers and their repercussions. "He's a serious student!" Yet, because of this charge, he's been taken to one of four Israeli military jails to be held for at least 18 days - the same day as his court date - before he can even see a lawyer, much less his family. The boy who dreams of university courses will likely end up missing too many days of school (because of this arrest) at the end of this year to be able to advance to the next grade. Depending on the sentence that will be handed down in a trial that will not permit evidence from the defense, a sentence that could be up to 6 months with a 5000 NIS ($1,345) fine, Lo'y will also miss the beginning of next year's classes.

And his family? In a family of four sons and three daughters, the next to the last child is the first to be arrested, but the whole family feels the anguish, the anger and the frustration of the arrest. Lo'y's mother said it best, "we are all exiled."