Occupied Jerusalem- World Children’s Day was declared in 1954 as a global occasion celebrated on November 20 of each year, to promote international interdependence, raise awareness among the world’s children and improve their well-being.
And I was baptized General Assembly To the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child 1959, andConvention on the Rights of the Child In 1989, and since 1990, Universal Children’s Day has been celebrated as the anniversary of the date of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and the Convention related to it, and the theme of the celebration is published on the official website of the United Nations every year.
According to the website, this year’s celebration is under the slogan “Listen to the future… Stand with children’s rights.” It was stated on the main page of this celebration that “World Children’s Day provides each of us with an inspiring springboard to defend, promote and celebrate children’s rights, and translate them into discussions and actions to build a better world for children.”
But since October 7, 2023, the world of Palestinian children has collapsed, the values of defending them have declined, and they have become vulnerable to serious attacks that violate all international conventions and contradict all provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The right to life is stolen
Data from the website of Defense for Children International (Palestine Branch) indicate that the Israeli occupation has killed 2,451 Palestinian children since 2000 until today. This number does not include Gazan children who have been killed since the outbreak of the current war.
Also according to the website, 164 Palestinian children were killed in West Bank Since the outbreak of war, including 22 in Jerusalem.
The violations do not stop at depriving children of their right to life, but rather by violating their freedom by implementing a widespread campaign of arrests since “Al-Aqsa floodAmjad Abu Assab, head of the Jerusalem Prisoners’ Families Committee, described it as “noisy.”
At the beginning of his talk to Al Jazeera Net, he said that about 2,400 arrests had been carried out in the city Jerusalem Since October 7, 2023, the arrests have included 350 children under the age of 18, in addition to 35 children under the age of 12.
Brutal kidnapping
During the arrest, the minors – according to Abu Asab – were subjected to severe beatings that caused fractures in their bodies, in addition to some of them being brutally kidnapped. These were investigated and some of them were tried under the Anti-Terrorism Law on charges of incitement on social media sites, or participating in confrontations in each of the following cases: Old town And Al-Issawiya andPhase andSilwan Shuafat camp and others.
Abu Assab revealed that 55 Jerusalemite minors are currently in Megiddo Prison, in addition to a group of minors who are still in the “Al-Mascobiyya” interrogation center, and are scheduled to be transferred in the near future to the same prison.
The head of the committee added that Al-Maqdisi Muhammad Abu Qutaish, who recently entered prison as a child and reached the age of 18, is the one with the longest sentence among the youth, as he was effectively sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of carrying out a stabbing attack in late 2022.
The two children, Muhammad al-Zalbani and Mahmoud Aliwat (15 years old), are also awaiting high actual prison sentences. The sentencing hearing for the child al-Zalbani is expected to be held next week, and his family has been informed that an 18-year prison sentence is likely to be issued against him after his life sentence is commuted, according to Abu Saab. .
Serious violations
To delve more into the details of what minors are exposed to during arrest or inside prisons since the outbreak of the current war, a lawyer (who preferred to remain anonymous) who works at the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, which specializes in following up on minors’ files, said that the treatment of children has changed completely inside police stations, investigation centers and in prisons from Before the administration and the jailers.
Lawyer Al-Maqdisi added that none of the minors have been released without conditions since the outbreak of the war, and most of them were transferred to home detention for days or months or until the end of legal procedures, in addition to a number of them having indictments filed against them.
“Even if the minor is a suspect and is investigated at the police station and it is concluded that he is innocent of suspicion, he will not be released without conditions.”
The lawyer pointed out that hundreds of children have been transferred to home detention since October 7, 2023, and anyone against whom an indictment was filed without being over the age of 14 was transferred to closed internal institutions similar to prisons until he reaches the legal age that allows him to be transferred to prison.
Regarding the charges that required the arrest and trial of hundreds of Jerusalemite children, the lawyer Al-Maqdisi said that the minors participated in the confrontations that broke out at the beginning of the war, and “some of them threw stones at the security forces, their cars, or settlers’ homes, or threw Molotov cocktails, or some of them published leaflets that were considered incitement against social media sites”.
Conditions of imprisonment of minors
Regarding the most difficult files that this lawyer dealt with, he said that 4 minors from the town of Silwan were accused of forming a military cell and trying to prepare explosive devices, and the Israeli Public Prosecution is now demanding that they be imprisoned for a period of more than 4 years.
Two of them were released to home detention until the end of the legal procedures on the condition that they are tied with an electronic bracelet to monitor their movement space. The four minors are between 14 and 15 years old.
As for the condition of minors inside prisons and what he hears from them during their presentation to the courts via Zoom technology, he said that they all complain about the poor quality of food and its meager quantities, as “9 minors in the room are provided with breakfast for one person, which consists of a box of brick, butter, jam, and hummus, and in the evening A plate of rice or spoiled bulgur and vegetables that smell bad and are inedible are brought into the room, and so most of them lose half their weight.”
After human rights organizations submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, the quality and quantity of food provided to detainees improved. When asked: What does he say, as a follower of the files of child prisoners in the city of Jerusalem, as the world celebrates International Children’s Day?
The lawyer replied, “I advise institutions concerned with children’s rights, whether affiliated with the United Nations or others, to submit petitions to the Supreme Court in order to improve living conditions inside prisons, because we have entered the winter season and there are not enough blankets for children. There are only two mattresses and two covers for 9 prisoners, and they take turns “Sleeping on it and on the floor.”
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