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Knife allegedly found on 15-year-old Palestinian at checkpoint in Hebron (Source: Israeli police spokesperson) Published by Maan News
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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- An Israeli police spokesperson said that a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was detained Tuesday morning at a military checkpoint near the Ibrahimi mosque in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, alleging that the child had a knife hidden under his clothes.

Luba al-Samri wrote in a statement that the boy was taken for interrogation and added that "no human casualties were reported."

She claimed the incident marked the third time in six days that Israeli forces arrested Palestinian minors attempting to pass through Israeli checkpoints with knives in their possession.

Israeli forces have detained scores of Palestinians, many of the minors, for allegedly being in possession of knives following a spate of alleged and actual small-scale knife attacks by Palestinians that surged in the fall of 2015.


Rights groups have disputed Israel's version of events in a number of cases, also denouncing what they have termed as a "shoot-to-kill" policy against alleged attackers who did not constitute a threat at the time of their death, or who could have been subdued in a non-lethal manner -- amid a backdrop of impunity for Israeli forces who have committed the killings.

Eyewitnesses have also said in a number of cases that Israeli security forces planted knives on slain or imprisoned Palestinians to claim that they were acting in self-defense during a stabbing attack.

Hebron in particular grew as the epicenter of upheaval, with a number of Palestinians having been shot while being detained at military checkpoints in the area.

Meanwhile, rights groups have widely documented the abuse and mistreatment of Palestinians by Israeli forces and the harsh interrogation practices used to force their confessions.

According to Palestinian prisoners' rights group Addameer, the 6,279 Palestinians currently being held in Israeli prison, 300 of them are children under the age of 18.

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