Israel policy of detaining kids questioned

BEIT UMAR, West Bank (AP) -- When Mahmoud al-Alami was 9 years old, an Israeli soldier caught him throwing rocks, took him out of his uncle's arms, slung him over his shoulders and carried him away.

Mahmoud, now 10, says he was subsequently blindfolded and shackled, slapped and ordered to confess to throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers and identify other children doing the same.

Mahmoud is among dozens of Palestinian minors who are detained every month by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, interrogated and pressured to report on others, according to a report issued this week.

The report, by the Swedish branch of the organization Save the Children and the East Jerusalem YMCA, examined the cases of 297 minors aged 17 and under who were detained in 2011, most of them in nighttime raids on their homes after Israeli forces accused them of throwing stones.

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