Reference Number: :/2023
Date: April 5, 2023
Native language: Arabic
Press Release
The International Commission “HASHD”: on Palestinian Children’s Day, it is the international community’s responsibility to provide international protection to the children of Palestine and to prosecute the Israeli occupation for its crimes against the Palestinian child.
On Wednesday, April 5, 2023, it will be the Day of the Palestinian Child, held by the Palestinian people since 1995, when the late President Yasser Arafat declared his commitment to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. This was followed by the State of Palestine’s ratification of the Convention on the International Rights of the Child on April 2, 2014.
This occasion comes in the light of Israel’s continuing violations against Palestinian children, in particular, field killings and the escalating targeting of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, for which they are subjected to kinds of debasement, persecution, and torture.
Children in the Gaza Strip continue to suffer as a result of the unjust blockade imposed on them for the sixteenth consecutive year. The difficult humanitarian situation of Palestinian refugee children in the camps, both inside and in the diaspora, is exacerbated, apart from the seizure of children’s right to education through the demolition or break-in of schools and the targeting, pursuit, and detention of students and the constant threat to their daily lives.
According to the Palestinian Statistics Centre, the number of children under 18 years of age in the State of Palestine is approximately 2.35 million; of them, 1.20 million are male and 1.15 million are female, making up 43.9% of the total population in Palestine, 41.7% in the West Bank, and 47.3% in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupying power has caused Palestinian children to suffer over the long years to this day. , racist occupation policies have increased through the most egregious crimes against children, such as field executions and deliberately injuring children through live shootings. The arrests that target them do so without regard to international law, and the Palestinian child faces numerous challenges in various sectors. This reduces access to basic rights and presents the most significant challenges facing Palestinian children:
- Deprivation of the right to life: The result of field killings has been since the beginning of this year (94) Including (17) Other Child Killed one of them is Amir Maamoun Odeh (16) years on Friday evening, 10 March, after he was shot in the chest by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank city of Kalkiliya, the Israeli occupation forces had killed 53 Palestinian children over the past year (2022) in the West Bank, including Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip (36 children in the West Bank and 17 children in the Gaza Strip).
- Deprivation of liberty: Israel continues to pursue a policy of arresting and detaining Palestinian children. As of the end of January, 4780, the number of prisoners in occupation prisons has been recorded as prisoners, including 160 children, who are subjected to the most heinous methods of torture to forcibly remove their confessions from them and to be brought before Israeli military courts, which sentence them to high sentences; In addition to the harsh and inhumane conditions of detention suffered by Palestinian children in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, which lacked minimum international standards for children’s and prisoners’ rights, and the unfair sentencing of children, following amendments to certain juvenile laws commensurate with the occupation’s quest to legitimize the conviction of children, and the introduction of children In recent years, the Knesset has passed several laws targeting Palestinian children, such as the Law on the Prosecution of Children Under 14 Years of Age, the Law on the Aggravation of the Minimum Penalty for Stone Throwers in Jerusalem, and the Law on the Lifting of Sentences for Stone Throwers.
- Palestine refugee children in Lebanon: over 60 thousand Palestinian children in Lebanon Palestinian refugees, or about 30% of the approximately 174 thousand Palestine refugees, according to the latest census in 2017, have difficulty living as a result of Lebanon’s economic collapse and its impact on Palestine refugees in Lebanon. This situation has a direct impact on the Palestinian child, who is both a Palestinian refugee and a child in need of special care.
The International Commission (Hashd) emphasizes that the totality of these practices constitutes a flagrant violation of Palestinian children’s rights and the norms of international humanitarian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which emphasizes the need to protect children and their lives. These agreements prevent children from being deprived of their liberty, but as Israel’s flagrant, declared, and organized violations continue towards Palestinian children, life, security, health, and education are among the grave breaches of international law and always make the killing and detention of Palestinian children the first opportunity, notwithstanding its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1991, which obliges it to implement it. Various international laws affirm children’s rights and the obligation to protect them and to hold those who violate them accountable. As a whole, the International Commission “HASHD” calls for:
- The International Commission (Hashd): Calls upon the international community and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention to intervene for the international protection of Palestine’s children and the prosecution of Israeli occupation leaders for their crimes against Palestinian children.
2. The International Commission (Hashd): Calls on the international community to break the silence to stop the double standard politics and to intervene immediately and seriously to stop Israel’s repeated crimes against children. - The International Commission (Hashd): Calls upon the Palestinian authorities to refer the crimes of the Israeli occupation to the International Criminal Court and to work in the vicinity of the Human Rights Council and UNICEF to urge them to take serious action to compel the occupation authorities to abide by the norms of international law.
4. The International Commission (Hashd): Calls upon the Palestinian authorities responsible for adopting a national policy for the protection of children and taking the necessary measures to promote the realities of Palestinian children, fulfilling their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and working to address challenges and follow up on violations of children’s rights in the Palestinian territories.
5. The International Commission (Hashd): Calls on the United Nations to add the occupying power to the blacklist of children’s rights and move to protect children in the occupied Palestinian territories.
