Israeli occupation authorities have arrested more than 53,000 Palestinian children since 1967
Israeli occupation authorities have arrested more than 53,000 Palestinian children since 1967, the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs said in a statement yesterday.
Abdul-Nasser Farawna, the commission’s head of Studies and Documentation Department, said that the Israeli occupation deals with Palestinian children like adults, stating that they are subject to the same torture, investigation and detention conditions.
This number, Ferwana said, includes girls and boys, stressing that Israel does not respect international laws and conventions when it comes to dealing with minors.
About 1,300 Palestinian children were detained in 2021, Ferawna said; a 140 per cent increase in the rate of child detentions compared to the previous year.
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Since the start of 2022, Ferawma said, Israel has detained more than 200 children, and there are currently 160 children inside the occupation’s jails.
In a report issued to mark Palestinian Child Day today, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that Israel detained more than 9,000 Palestinian girls and boys between 2015 and March 2022.
According to a report, a network of extremist Israeli civil society organisations, with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy, have organised defamation campaigns to delegitimise international, Palestinian, and even Israeli humanitarian and human rights organisations defending the rights of Palestinian children. While their allegations are unsubstantiated and distort critical factual or legal elements, they have nonetheless negatively impacted the ability of organisations like ours to deliver critical assistance to Palestinians and advocate on behalf of their human rights.
At the end of July 2021, Israeli paramilitary border police raided DCI–Palestine’s headquarters in Al-Bireh, just south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, confiscating computers and child client files. Responding to this raid and other attacks is an enormous task that takes valuable time away from working for Palestinian children’s rights.
Despite these continued attacks designed to divert our resources, crush our morale, and scare our international network of trusted partners, our team remains committed to defending the rights of Palestinian children like Obaida, who deserve a liberated future, not one that is violently taken away.
