Israel Terrorizes 14-Year-Old Palestinian Girl

by Stephen Lendman

Horrific Israeli human rights abuses continue daily against long-suffering Palestinians - for being unwanted Arabs in a Jewish state.

According to the HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, Israeli authorities deported 14-year-old Ghada (her last name not revealed) to Gaza alone without parents or guardian, following her arrest in Jerusalem for entering the city without permit permission.

The incident occurred on January 16. Born in Ramallah, she lived in the West Bank throughout her life.

Her father was originally from Gaza. She lives with her family in a-Ram, a West Bank town near Jerusalem. 

Returning from a visit with her aunt in Jerusalem's Issawiya neighborhood on January 13, Israeli border police arrested her.

Despite an uncle paying around $400 for her release on bail to return home, Israel's Prison Service took her through Erez Crossing into Gaza at 10:00PM - her family not told what happened.

They had no idea what happened when she didn't return home. She never before visited Gaza. She stayed with family relatives she never met before and didn't know.

Intervention by HaMoked on her behalf succeeded in getting her released to return home to her parents after a two-week ordeal,  its attorney Abir Jubran-Dachwar saying:

"With obtuseness that cannot be justified, nobody bothered to tell (Ghada) where she was or made sure the family knew of her release, as is required in view of her age."

An a-Ram activist said her family her family is impoverished, living in a small room, surviving on money gotten by begging.

Thousands of West Bank Palestinians have their home address listed as Gaza, including children like Ghada born in the West Bank, living there all their lives.

According to HaMoked, Israel refuses to update its records. It considers these Palestinians "illegal aliens" unless they received permit permission to live in the West Bank.

Following a 2012 Israeli High Court ruling on a HaMoked petition, the IDF agreed not to deport Palestinians with a Gaza address if they lived in the West Bank after Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Strip.

Last year, 27 Palestinian West Bank residents were forcibly deported to Gaza against their will, disrupting the lives of victims and their families.

Being Palestinian in a ruthless Jewish state subjects them to endless persecution, young children treated as abusively as adults.

Ghada found herself alone in Gaza at night after being forcibly taken there by Israel's Prison Service, indifferent to her welfare, treating her like a a fifth column threat, terrifying her and her parents.

How can someone be an "illegal alien" in their own homeland? Ghada isn't an ordinary teenager. She suffers from epilepsy.

She was detained under deplorable conditions for two days until deported to Gaza, returned to her parents last Thursday.

Despite her harrowing ordeal, she's more fortunate than Ahed Tamimi, detained for weeks awaiting trial on February 13 for defending her family's property, for wanting to live free from oppressive occupation, for courageously opposing Israeli cruelty against Palestinians.

Israeli Ziofascists disgracefully call her a terrorist. She faces certain conviction and imprisonment, maybe for years, a 17-year-old girl the ruthless Jewish state wants silenced - buried and forgotten in the bowels of Israel's gulag hell.

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