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RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces Monday afternoon arrested two young Palestinian boys while they were playing in the courtyard of their house in Silwad in the central West Bank, family members told Ma'an.

A relative identified the children as seven-year-old Abd al-Fattah Abd al-Ghani Teima Hammad and eight-year-old Ramzi Ahmad Meri.

The kids were playing when three Israeli soldiers broke into the courtyard and took them to a military base near the town, the relative said, requesting anonymity.

He said there were no clashes taking place in the area prior to the arrests.

When the children's mothers went to the military base to check on their children, Israeli troops fired tear gas at them, the relative told Ma'an.

He said the kids were released a few hours later, after the Palestinian military liaison department intervened.

A Ma'an reporter uploaded to Youtube footage from a surveillance camera in the area that appears to show two small children being arrested by Israeli soldiers.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was looking into the incident.

Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated and prosecuted around 7,000 children between 12 and 17, mostly boys, according to a 2013 report by the UN Children's Fund.

The rate of child arrests is equivalent to "an average of two children each day," the UNICEF report says.