According to a recent report from a Palestinian rights organization, Israeli forces may have detained 570 Palestinian minors since the year 2023 began.
The information was provided in remarks made by Riyad al-Ashqar, the director of the Palestine Center for Prisoners’ Studies (PCPS), which were published on Sunday by the Palestinian Information Center.
According to him, 435 of the Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces were from the occupied city of al-Quds, which represents a 15% increase over the same period last year.
read more: Israel faces severe condemnation as it moves to imprison more Palestinian minors
According to al-Ashqar, 29 of the detainees were children under the age of 12, with two of them being just 10 years old.
The Palestinian official stated that “dozens of children were placed under house arrest after their release in the first half of 2023.”
He added that under the cruel administrative detention policy of the occupying regime, which permits Israeli forces to imprison Palestinians for indefinite periods of time without any charges or a trial, 23 Palestinian minors were arrested.
An independent nongovernmental organization called the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC) reported in May that Israeli forces had imprisoned an astounding 3,000 Palestinians since the year’s beginning.
The PCPS reported in January that 7,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, had been detained by Israeli forces last year.
Al-Ashqar stated at the time that “Israel arrested 865 Palestinian children, including 142 under the age of 12 in 2022,” adding that all detainees had experienced abuse, torture, or humiliation. Some of the children had not even reached the age of nine.
Early in June, the Palestinian freedom fighter movement Hamas, declared that the international community must step in to stop Israel’s abuse of Palestinian children.
In a statement on the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression, Hamas claimed that by keeping the Gaza Strip under blockade, the regime denies sick children access to medical care, medication, and food.
Israel continues to kidnap and imprison children in the occupied West Bank, sometimes even killing them, putting them under house arrest, or using them as human shields, according to Hamas.
