Report: 10,000 Palestinian children nabbed since 2000
More than 10,000 Palestinian children have served time in Israeli jails since 2000, PA Minister in charge of prisoners’ affairs Issa Qaraqaa said in a press release on Wednesday. ● The statement came on the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and entered into force on 2 September 1990. 300 Palestinian children are currently held behind Israeli bars, according to the statement. ● Since June 2014, Israeli occupation forces arrested nearly 3,000 Palestinian citizens, 30% of whom were children. Most of the reported arrests were carried out in occupied Jerusalem, where 850 Jerusalemites were nabbed during the reporting period. ● 95% of the detained children were subjected to torture and severe beating during their arrest and investigation process as part of the Israeli policy to forcibly extract confessions from the detainees, Qaraqaa added. ● The minister for prisoners’ affairs called for cancelling the Israeli bill to impose additional penalties on Palestinian children, who throw stones at Israeli soldiers, that could reach 20-year imprisonment sentences. Israel does not provide any immunity for children and regularly violates international agreements on children's rights by humiliating and torturing them and denying them fair trials, the PA official concluded.