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Photo: Reuters
Machsom Watch says IDF holding Hebron family hostage nightly
Rights group says military procedure in which troops commandeer Palestinian house in troubled area 'aberrant and inhumane'
Nearly every day over the past week and a half, the Mesayef family of Beit Ommar, a village located north of Hebron, has been forced to crowd in one small room for up to five hours at a stretch by IDF troops.
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As part of the army's operations in the area against rioters who regularly hurl stones, troops employ a procedure that sees them commandeering a house as a temporary lookout point or base of operations. Residents are usually confined to one area of the building for the duration.
Mahmoud Hassan Ibrahim Mesayef, patriarch of the 14-member family, doesn't understand why the soldiers come to his house of all places. "My children live in fear," he told Ynet.
The three-story house is located near Route 60 in the West Bank. Mesayef says that last week soldiers came to his home to seize it on the orders of the Etzion regional commander, and since then have been returning every evening.
"Every night they give us hell. We are taken, all of us, and placed in a tiny room. If we need to go to the bathroom the soldier stands near the door and waits – sometimes with the door open," Mesayef says.
"My youngest child is two months old and another is one year old. You can understand how difficult this is. Last week they were here every night from 7 pm until 12 am, and this week they came back for two more days."
'Hostages every night'
Hanna Barag from Israeli human rights organization Machsom Watch: "The army has been battling the stone throwing from Beit Ommar for years, and if there is a security need to commandeer a house it's one thing. The problem is that you take these people hostage every night. They can build a watchtower if needed, it would take one day (to build), or sit up on a hilltop or even change houses."Barag adds: "This is aberrant and inhumane. Everyone should put themselves in these people's shoes and think what they would do if they were locked up for hours every night in a room with 13 other people, at gunpoint, without even being able to go to the bathroom properly."
Machsom Watch wrote to the IDF regarding the incident, saying: "Without discussing the procedure in general or the reasons that the army cites for employing it, we ask to complain about the fact that the entire family is led into a small room on the third floor by soldiers with their weapons drawn, and is then held there for many long hours.
"You will probably reply that the procedure is employed because of security considerations – but we wonder, if this is about security considerations then why expel the family to the highest lookout point? Why do infants need to be awoken from their sleep and held hostage, when they reside in the lower floors of the house, which the army doesn't use. Why interfere with the lives of the residents and not allow them to stay in the lower floors," the Machsom Watch women asked in their letter.
The IDF has yet to comment on the allegations.
