Israel Arrests 570 Palestinian Children In First Half of 2023
Al-Quds, MINA – The Israeli occupation forces arrested 570 young Palestinian children during the first half of 2023, including 435 children from the occupied city of Jerusalem. This was quoted from Palinfo on Monday.
Palestinian Center for Prisoners Studies spokesperson Riyad Al-Ashqar said cases of arrest of children under the age of eighteen increased by 15 percent compared to the same period last year which reached 485.
Riyad indicated that 29 of the detainees were under the age of 12, including the two children of Rayan Abu Rayan (10) from the town of Silwan, and Omar Al-Natsheh (10) from the neighborhood of Batn Al-Hawa.
The Israeli occupation police even summoned a Jerusalem child, Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Abbasi, who was only 6 years old, for questioning at the police station, on the pretext of possessing a plastic toy gun.
Meanwhile, a little girl named Rama Rami Abu Aisha (14), from Hebron, was arrested at a checkpoint near the Ibrahimi Mosque.
Al-Ashqar explained that the occupation forces arrested a number of minors after shooting and wounding them with various wounds, including 16-year-old Wadih Aziz Abu Romouz, from Silwan.
Abu Ramuz was martyred two days after his arrest, injured in clashes in the town of Silwan, and his body was kept for five months before being handed over to his family.
The occupation forces arrested Mahmoud Aliwat (13), Omar Abu Mayyala (15), and Muhammad Al Abbasi (17), from Silwan town, and Amir Al-Biss (12) from Al-Arroub camp, after critically wounding them.
According to Al-Ashqar, the Israeli occupation military courts continue to impose heavy fines on child prisoners, who are a burden to their families given the deteriorating economic conditions in Palestine.
The total financial fines imposed on children in court only during the first half of this year amounted to 175,000 shekels.
During the first half of this year, the occupying authorities issued dozens of house arrest orders against children after their release, mainly Jerusalem children, some of whom were actually imprisoned.
With regard to administrative detention, the occupation courts issued more than 23 administrative detention decisions, most of which were new decisions against minors between 3 and 6 months of age.
In light of Israel’s continued violations, the Knesset approved, in its first reading, a bill that would allow the imposition of prison sentences on Palestinian children under the age of 12 from residents of Jerusalem and the Palestinian interior.
Al-Ashqar views these actions as further evidence of racism and brutality, which opens the door to targeting this age group protected by international law.
He pointed out that the occupation ignored all international conventions limiting the deprivation of children’s freedom, and made it last resort and for the shortest possible period, and considered them a disruptive project.
The occupying authorities began to torture and abuse children from the first moment of their arrest, by taking them from their homes late at night, or by kidnapping them from the streets and at checkpoints.
Children were subjected to various forms of abuse and humiliation, including cruel beatings, insults and obscenities directed at them, threats and intimidation, and arrests using stray police dogs to bite their bodies.
Currently, there are 160 children in the occupation prisons distributed in the juvenile sections of the Megiddo, Ofer and Damon prisons, in harsh living conditions, where they are deprived of all the necessities of simple life and their right to education, in addition to the existence of a number of detention centers which are still being investigated. (T/RE1/P2)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
