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Israel arrested 745 children since start of 2019, abuses child detainees: Report

Wednesday, 20 November 2019 7:14 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 20 November 2019 7:37 AM ]

Israeli guards detain a Palestinian child during a demonstration outside Lions Gate, a main entrance to Al-Aqsa mosque compound, in Jerusalem al-Qud's Old City on July 17, 2017 (Photo by AFP)

Israel has arrested 745 Palestinian children under the age of 18 since the start of this year, many of whom have been subjected to numerous rights violations, a watchdog group reports.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club said that nearly 200 children were undergoing continued imprisonment in various detention centers across Israel as of Tuesday, a day before World Children’s Day, the Palestinian Quds News Network reported.

World Children’s Day on November 20 marks the anniversaries of the United Nation’s adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

In the newly released report, the watchdog group said that Palestinian children arrested by Israel experience numerous rights violations as soon as they are taken away from their houses usually late at night under harsh conditions.

The violations continue with the children’s detention, which includes being interrogated in poor humanitarian conditions.

The report added that the arrested children are denied their right to education, a clear violation of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Some of the children are also denied family visits and medical treatment.

Arrested Palestinian children are at times deprived of food and water and experience beatings, insults, threats and intimidation, according to The Palestinian Quds News Network. The network added that children are at times forced to confess and pay high fines for alleged climes.

Some of the children are put under administrative detention, a sort of imprisonment which doesn’t require trial.

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Several Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike over Israel’s administrative detention.

The Quds Network added that among the detained children, several have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms, some of which reach up to 10 years.

In May, a study claimed that Israel had arrested up to 16,500 Palestinian children since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in late-2000.

‘Israel has arrested 16,500 Palestinian minors since 2000’

Israel has arrested some 16,500 Palestinian children since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (uprising) in late-2000, a study says.

Since 2015, several shootings have also been documented showing that Israeli authorities have been deliberately targeting children, according to the Palestinian Quds News Network.

Back in March, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said that around 40 children had been killed and hundreds more wounded in one year of anti-occupation protest rallies along the fence that separates the besieged Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied territories.

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