What happens to Palestinian kids when arrested by IOF?

 

Aljizeera

Most of the 150 Palestinian prisoners expected to be released as part of the Gaza truce deal between Israel and Hamas will be children.

The Israeli authorities have detained thousands of Palestinian kids from across the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, over the past decades and subjected them to Israel’s military court system.

“The most common charge levied against children is throwing stones, a crime that is punishable under military law by up to 20 years in prison,” explains Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner support and advocacy group. 

 

According to Defense for Children International’s Palestine branch (DCI-Palestine), between 500 and 700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 17 are detained, interrogated, prosecuted and imprisoned by Israel every year.

Here’s what you need to know about the treatment of Palestinian children in Israel’s military detention system, as detailed in a DCI-Palestine survey of more than 760 kids detained in the occupied West Bank between 2016 and 2022:

• IOF (Israeli Offense Forces) detain most Palestinian children during nighttime raids on their homes, and “Most are blindfolded, hand-tied, and beaten by Israeli soldiers at the time of arrest.”

• Eighty percent of Palestinian child detainees are strip-searched by Israeli soldiers before their interrogations.

• Two-thirds of Palestinian children are not informed of their rights during Israeli interrogations.

• One in four Palestinian children was held in “stress positions” during interrogation; Twenty-three percent were held in solitary confinement “for 2+ days” to elicit confessions.

• “During the interrogation, my hands were tied. My legs were tied to the chair. The interrogator told me he might keep me in the cell for hundreds of days. He told me I won’t see my family if I don’t confess,” a Palestinian boy interrogated in an Israeli military detention centre at age 16 told DCI-Palestine.  
•  More than 8,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, with dozens more arrested in the occupied West Bank every day.