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A hidden universe of suffering. The Palestinian children sent to jail

by Nathan Thrall.

Huda Dahbore was 35 years old when she moved with her husband and three children to the West Bank

in September 1995. It was the second anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which established pockets

of Palestinian self-government in the occupied territories.

Jerusalem was still relatively open when they arrived in Issoahre,

a neighborhood just outside the areas of Jerusalem that Israel had annexed in 1967.

Huda was able to send her children to school within the city.

They were under the age of 12, and Israel allowed them to enter without a special blue ID.

But over time, the restrictions grew, and from one day to the next,

Jerusalem was closed off to Palestinians by checkpoints, roadblocks, and a tightening of the ever

more elaborate permit regime. On one occasion, the school bus was blocked from bringing

the students home to Issoahre. Huda and half the parents of the neighborhood spent the afternoon

searching for their children, who finally showed up at sunset, after walking for several hours.

Huda immediately took them out of their Jerusalem schools.

It was a fateful decision. Until then, her eldest son, Hadi, had lived up to the meaning of

his name, Khan. He was a quiet boy who rarely got into trouble. That changed when he had to start

a new school, this one in Abu Diz, which was home to Al-Quds University, and the site of frequent

...