Four out of five Palestinian minors detained by Israel are subjected to physical abuse, denounces Save the Children

Touching, family separation and psychological pressures during detention: abuses that are creating a new lost generation

July 10 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Four out of five Palestinian minors detained by the Israeli Army are subjected to physical abuse in the custody of the military, according to a Save the Children investigation that details even assaults or touching their genitals, forced nakedness, restricted access to food and medications as well as their families, in an odyssey that leads to insomnia and nightmares for a new generation completely disillusioned with their future within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The new investigation is launched coinciding with the presentation that will be made, this Monday, by the special rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, before the UN Human Rights Council, before which she will present evidence about the circumstances of the annual arrests of between 500 and 1,000 minors who end up being held in Israeli military detention centers.

Minors, denounces the NGO, are interrogated in unknown places without the presence of their parents or legal guardians, sometimes without being able to request assistance from lawyers. The main alleged crime of these arrests is the throwing of stones, recalls Save the Children, something that can carry a sentence of 20 years in prison for Palestinian boys and girls.

The NGO, through this investigation, which has been based on a study of 228 minors — the vast majority of them boys who ended up in Israeli custody between the ages of 12 and 17 — denounces these abuses as “a serious and prolonged problem of rape of Human Rights” and calls on Israel to end the detention of Palestinian minors under military law and their prosecution in military courts.

Save the Children, it should be noted, considers that the number of participants is perfectly representative given that the monthly average of young Palestinians detained by Israel is 137 minors.

BEATS, NAKEDNESS AND TOUCHING

Four out of five Palestinian boys and girls detained by Israel are beaten and 69 percent are forcibly stripped naked. Nearly half (42 percent) sustain injuries at the time of arrest, such as gunshot wounds and broken bones. Some children have denounced violence and abuse of a sexual nature, such as beatings or touching the genitals, and 69 percent, searches.

Likewise, 60 percent of the children were subjected to solitary confinement, lasting between one and 48 days, denied access to basic services — 70 percent said they suffered from hunger and 68 percent said not receive health care — and 58 percent of children were denied visits or communication with their family while in detention.

“The soldier threatened to kill me when he arrested me for the second time,” recalls Jalil, under an assumed name. “He asked me if I wanted to suffer the same fate as his cousin, since he had been killed. He promised me that the same thing would happen to me and that I would die, but that he would send me to jail first. He told me that he would come back for me. and every day I wait for that day to come,” he adds.

There are children who even recognize psychological pressure from the Israeli Army to incriminate their relatives. “My son was naive and did not understand what was happening. He said what they told him to say; a few days later, they came to our house and arrested my other son,” laments Yasmin (also a fictitious name) about what happened to one of their children.

For all these reasons, the number of boys and girls who have frequent nightmares has increased from 39 percent to 53 percent and that of those who suffer from insomnia or sleeping difficulties has shot up from 47 percent to 73 percent, compared to the boys and girls surveyed in 2020.

Save the Children’s director for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jason Lee, recalls that Palestinian children are “the only ones in the world who experience systematic prosecution in military courts.” “Our research shows – once again – that they are subjected to serious and widespread abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them,” he adds.

Lee denounces that there is no justification for beating and stripping children, treating them like animals or robbing them of their future: “This is a child protection crisis that can no longer be ignored. This abusive child protection system must end once and for all. military detention,” he concludes.

Save the Children calls on Israel to respect all children’s rights and international law, and calls for an immediate moratorium on the arrest, detention and prosecution of children by Israeli military authorities.