Israel is arbitrarily jailing Palestinian children in record numbers. This must stop
Palestinian boys - mostly 15 to 17 years of age, but sometimes as young as 12 - have long been targeted by the Israeli military for arrest, detention and prosecution.
Israel is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts, with between 500 and 700 Palestinian children detained and prosecuted annually.
An increasing number of those children have not been charged with any crime, and are held under administrative detention orders. They are part of the largest cohort of Palestinian child administrative detainees in history.
Since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have seriously escalated their efforts to arrest Palestinians, including children, in huge numbers.
The most consistent source of prisoner numbers is the Israel Prison Service, which releases head counts once a quarter, including breakdowns by age and charge - or lack thereof. Human rights groups like the one I work for, Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCIP), monitor these numbers, document prison conditions, and collect testimony from prisoners.
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The numbers alone are alarming: for the last year, each time the Israel Prison Service has released head counts, the number of Palestinian child detainees held in administrative detention was the highest it’s ever been.
The latest head count - 112 Palestinian child administrative detainees, as of the end of December - is almost five times the number of children held without charge prior to 7 October 2023. Child administrative detainees now represent more than one in three Palestinian child prisoners.
Rapid expansion
Israeli forces have rapidly expanded their use of administrative detention to exert control over Palestinian children and families in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli authorities enacted harsh restrictions on access to Israeli prisons after 7 October. Family visits were suspended entirely, and visits from lawyers representing prisoners became extremely difficult, frequently rejected by Israeli authorities.
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As a result, DCIP’s lawyers have primarily collected testimony from children after their release from Israeli custody. All reported that prison conditions have deteriorated significantly, with Israeli prison guards regularly serving rotten food, denying access to toilets and showers, and crowding cells with twice the appropriate number of children.
“The food is poor quality, uncooked, and insufficient for us as children. It causes me difficulties because I suffer from stomach problems,” 16-year-old Jamal (who spoke under a pseudonym for safety reasons) told DCIP, describing the situation inside Ofer prison. “There is little comfort in the cell, as there are not enough beds for everyone. Some of us are forced to sleep on the floor in shifts.”
Until every Palestinian child is released from Israeli custody ... we must continue fighting to reunite children with their families
Israeli forces detained Jamal from his home in Arroub refugee camp in the southern occupied West Bank over the summer, after previously shooting him in the knee with live ammunition. On the date he was detained, he was scheduled to have surgery to repair the injury.
“The soldiers exploited my injury, forcing me to sit and kneel on my wounded knee for five hours. I was severely beaten if I moved due to the pain,” Jamal told DCIP, adding that the pressure caused his wound to reopen.
“They put headphones on my ears and played songs at a loud and annoying volume for an hour and a half, knowing that I suffer from weak hearing in my right ear, and this caused me pain in my left ear and head,” Jamal added.
Notorious cruelty
Israeli interrogators are notorious for carrying out acts of physical and psychological cruelty against Palestinian child detainees in order to extract a confession.
While international legal standards underscore that children accused of a crime have the right to have a family member and lawyer present with them during interrogation, Palestinian children are afforded neither.
Jamal was never presented with charges; instead, Israeli forces detained him pursuant to an administrative detention order. This meant that neither he, nor his family, had any idea when he would be released, what he was accused of, or when he would be able to go home.
Now, as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are finally being released as part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, some child prisoners are returning home to their families.
Israeli authorities are threatening their families in an effort to stop them from speaking to the media - yet another effort to isolate children and their families.
The Israeli military’s widespread and expanded use of administrative detention to target Palestinian children amounts to arbitrary detention, and has no standing in international law.
Until every Palestinian child is released from Israeli custody and this practice of targeting children is abolished, we must continue fighting to reunite children with their families.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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