An official report, received by Arab League from the minister of
prisoners' affairs in the Palestinian Authority (Ramallah), revealed
that the Israeli occupation forces have kidnapped about 6,200
Palestinian children since the beginning of Al Aqsa Intifada (2000),
including approximately 337 children still detained in Israeli prisons
and interrogation centers.
During last Saturday's meeting of the Arab League's permanent
delegates council, which was set to discuss the conditions of
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Minister Issa Qaraqe introduced
the report, which unveiled the "repressive, inhumane practices of the
Israeli occupation authorities against Palestinian children in Israeli
prisons and detention camps," stressing that this violates the rules of
international law, conventions on children's rights, and all
international norms.
The report pointed out that "any person under the age of 18 is
considered a child, according to international law, the Convention on
the Rights of the Child and, recently, Israeli domestic law," and
according to the definition of juvenile by the United Nations' Basic
Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, which were adopted in the
General Assembly Resolution 45/113, dated December 14, 1990.
Qaraqe stated that the Israeli occupation authorities "deprive detained
children from the basic rights granted by international conventions,
such as the right to know the reason for their arrest, the right to
counsel, the right of families to know the reason and the place of
detention of their child, the right to appear before the judge, the
right to object to the charge and lodge an appeal against it, the right
to communicate with the outside world, and the right to a humane
treatment that preserves the dignity of the detained child."
The report warned that the occupation authorities, "blatantly violated
the rights of detained children"; dealt with them as "potential
subversives", "and subjected them to different types of torture and
cruel treatment, such as beating, sleep deprivation, starvation, sexual
harassment, and deprivation of visits. The occupation forced applied
the worst mental and physical means to extract confessions from child
prisoners and to pressure them to work for Israeli intelligence."
The report also mentioned that during the first Intifada, massive
numbers of children were arrested and detained on charges of throwing
stones and other forms of political resistance, whereas, during the
second intifada, Tel Aviv began adopting administrative detention
against Palestinian children and it started convicting and detaining
children under the age of 14 for periods of up to 6 months.
The report further stated that, according to the 2002 annual report of
the Defense of Children International organization, those arrest
patterns did not exist during the years of the first intifada.
Middle East Monitor