'israel to prosecute Palestinian kids'

Israel is to place stone-throwing Palestinian youngsters under house arrest and drag their families into court, a report has pointed out.

Spokesman for the Israeli police, Shmulik Ben Ruby, said on Tuesday that Tel Aviv was to issue "court orders imposing strict house arrest on these children," AFP reported.

"We on our side will repeatedly investigate the house, and if there is a violation of the house arrest the parents will be held legally responsible and will have to appear in court in the place of their children," he said.

The official further noted that the affected children would have to commute to school together with a legal guardian.

The measure would target the Silwan neighborhood in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem), which Tel Aviv occupied and later annexed in defiance of the international law in 1967.

The police have been cracking down on the protesters in the crowded Arab neighborhood, who object to Tel Aviv's plans to raze 22 Arab-residing homes there to build a so-called archeological park.

A study by Defense for Children International-Palestine, an independent NGO, recently showed that Israeli settlers had intensified acts of violence against Palestinian children over the past two years.

The body had documented 38 cases of aggression, in 13 of which the settlers had opened fire on the victims, killing three children and injuring another 10.

Last month, the leader of Silwan's Jewish settlers ran over two Palestinian children aged 10 and 12, and fled the scene. The incident, which broke the younger victim's leg, prompted international condemnation.

Following the attack, the victims initially resisted to be hustled into a car, which apparently meant to take them to hospital. Palestinian youngsters fear getting into strangers' vehicles because they have seen their friends taken away by Israeli troops on regular bases.

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