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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Undercover Israeli operatives detained and interrogated a 7-year-old Palestinian boy and his twelve-year-old brother in occupied East Jerusalem Tuesday, only a day after two 15-year-olds from the same family were taken.

The boy and his older brother, from the Zaatari family in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz, were detained by Israeli operatives dressed as Palestinian locals while walking in the street Tuesday evening, the boys' grandfather told Ma'an.

The Zaatari family has had four children detained this week, Ihab Ahmed Zaatari, 7, and Muhammad Mahdi Zaatari 12, detained on Tuesday just one day after Alaa Magdy Zaatari and Mehdi Barakat Zaatari, both 15, were detained Monday.

An Israeli police spokesperson did not immediately return Ma'an's request for information on the incident, but told Israeli media the children were detained after throwing rocks at a bus.

The 7-year-old was reportedly interrogated for nearly eight hours.
Family member Mehdi Zaatari denied Israeli police claims that they were throwing rocks, telling Ma'an that the plainclothes officers came out of nowhere while the children were in the street in an area where nothing was happening.

"I was just meters from where they were arrested," he told Ma'an. "But I wasn't able to reach the area because it was such a quick arrest. 10 officers attacked the two boys and prevented them from moving before violently forcing them in a 'special' car."
"We went to the Salah al-Din Street city police station stayed there from 7:30 until 10:30 PM in front of the police station waiting for him to come. The whole time we tried to inquire about the place of their detention to no avail, he told Ma'an. "We had no news of the children for three hours."

"After they were brought to the police station they prevented us from eentering (and seeing them), despite the fact that Israeli and international laws require the presence of the mother or father during interrogation of their children. When the lawyer arrived he was also prevented from entering. He demanded the interrogation not take place at that late of an hour, but they refused (to delay the interrogation)."

Zaatari told Ma'an that his seven-year-old son was released around 3 AM and his 12-year-old son around 7 AM. Both were deprived of food and water during the interrogation, he told Ma'an.
In response to Tuesday's incident, Accountability Program director of children's rights group Defense for Children International- Palestine, Ayed Abu Eqtaish, told Ma'an, "In East Jerusalem, Palestinian children are being detained arbitrarily and, in this case, illegally, since children under 12 years of age are below the age of criminal responsibility.

"By arresting children as young as 6, Israel is flouting its own legal code, as well as international standards for the treatment of children," said Eqtaish.

This week's detentions come as Israeli forces continue to systematically detain and convict Palestinian youth for alleged rock throwing.

A bill was passed by Israeli leadership in November 2015 that could land an individual in jail for up to 20 years if convicted of stone throwing, a move that many argued was designed solely to target Palestinian youth in the midst of increasing violence in Jerusalem at the time.

Israeli detainment of Palestinian youth is often accompanied by harsh interrogation and conditions that violate international law, rights groups say.

In one case a child was kept in isolation for a total of 26 days for interrogation purpose, the report said.

Research by the group showed that Palestinian children often arrive at Israeli interrogation centers blindfolded, bound and sleep deprived and over 75 percent detained in 2014 endured some form of physical violence between the period of their arrest and interrogation.

Israel detained 1,266 Palestinian children below the age of 15 in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2014, according to a PLO report, and over 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces since 2000.