Israeli occupation forces have arrested at least 570 Palestinian children in the first six months of the current year, the Palestinian Information Center reported on Sunday, July 23, quoting the director of the Palestinian Center for Prisoners Studies (PCPS).
PCPS director Riyad al-Ashqar claimed that the figure was 15% higher than the same period last year.
In the whole of 2022, Israeli forces had detained at least 865 Palestinian children.
At least 29 of the Palestinian children arrested by the Israeli forces this year in six months were below the age of 12, and two of them were just 10 years old. Al-Ashqar also claimed that 23 Palestinian children were sent to illegal administrative detention by the Israeli courts in this period.
Administrative detention is widely used by Israel to keep Palestinians in prison for months or even years without trial or charge.
An overwhelming majority of the Palestinian children detained by the occupation forces (435 out of 570) are from occupied East Jerusalem.
Dozens of children have also been kept under house arrest for months after their release from prison.
According to the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, out of a total of 5,000 Palestinians currently in Israeli prison, around 160 are children.
Various human rights groups have said that Israel consistently violates Palestinian children’s rights while arresting them, with accusations of the use of torture in prisons as well. Thousands of Palestinian children have also been killed during the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression inside the occupied territories since 1967.
UN special rapporteur on the human rights in Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, in a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this month said that “approximately 10,000 Palestinian children have experienced institutionalized ill-treatment during arrests, prosecutions, and sentencing and the consequent traumas on themselves and their families.”
Israeli forces have killed at least 202 Palestinians this year—165 in the occupied West Bank and 37 in Gaza. At least 31 of them were below the age of 18.
