Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are writing our members of Congress to urge them to contact Mr. Hady Amr, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs at the State Department to press for the release from imprisonment without charge of Shadi Khoury and other Palestinian children. Our letter is also asking them to join the six California co-sponsors* who support H.R. 2590, or sponsor a companion bill in the Senate, which would prohibit U.S. military aid from being used by foreign armed forces to support the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of children in violation of international humanitarian law.

Shadi Khoury, the 16yr old grandson of the Sabeel Palestine Liberation Theology Center cofounder Samia Khoury, was arrested, beaten and dragged bleeding from his home in the pre-dawn hours of October 18^th by Israeli forces. He has had multiple court hearings during his three-week detention, yet no charges have been filed against him.

It is unclear what crime he might be accused of. He is an 11th grade student at the Friends (Quaker) School in Ramallah, a school known for its non-violence and peacebuilding. After his most recent hearing he was moved from Jerusalem’s notorious Moskobiya Interrogation Center to the high-security Damon prison near Haifa. There is speculation that his parents were the real target of this action. His father, Suhail, directs the Edward Said National Conservatory and his mother leads the Yabous Palestinian Cultural Association. Both have been previously arrested for their non-violent activism.

Shadi’s next hearing is scheduled for November 14th, but there is no guarantee we will learn anything more since Israel’s policy of “Administrative Detention” allows people to be detained for up to three months without charges being filed. These three month long detention orders can, and often are, renewed repeatedly, sometimes for years.

Unfortunately, Shadi’s arrest is not unusual. Five other teens were also arrested and similarly treated that same day. The Israeli military prosecutes between 500 and 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Organizations such as UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, have found that ill-treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli forces is widespread, systematic, and institutionalized from the moment a child is detained in the Israeli military detention system. The United States Department of State and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child have also raised serious concerns about the mistreatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military custody.

Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), and Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) have been actively using Shadi’s imprisonment to call for the release of him and all other Palestinian childhood detainees in Israel. Accurate numbers of detained children are hard to quote. Military Court Watch (MCW) uses 129, the September 2022 Israeli Prison Service stats but a higher estimate of 168 comes from Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) and reflects a recent surge in arrests during the last two months.

In conjunction with the Middle East Ministry, we are asking everyone to sign a letter to their members of Congress urging them to get involved by applying pressure on the Administration and passing legislation (H.R.2590) that will reflect the dire current reality faced by Palestinian Christians and others who are, and will be facing increasingly difficult times under the new hardline right-wing Israeli government and occupation.

Options to Take Action:

1. Sign on to the letters at the Action Table outside the church on Sunday morning.
2. Download a copy of the Action Letter that you can sign and mail:
   Action Letter for California Residents / Action Letter for Outside California
3. Click on this link to the Episcopal Public Policy (EPPN) action supporting H.R.2590

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If you ever need to look up your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or your U.S. Senators check here: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

To find contact information for your California State Senator or California State Assemblymember check here: www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov.