Report reveals violations committed against occupied Quds minors

PIC reported:

A joint report released by B'Tselem and HaMoked organizations on Wednesday revealed egregious violations of human rights committed by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) against Palestinian children in the occupied old city of al-Quds ('Jerusalem').

The report said that the IOF forces arrest the Palestinian children in the middle of the night, unnecessarily handcuff them and force them to spend a long time waiting for their interrogation to begin without giving them the opportunity to speak to their lawyers or families and without informing them that they have the right to remain silent.

The children are then held under harsh detention conditions for days and weeks even if the interrogation is over. All this in some cases is accompanied by threats, insults and physical abuse before or during the interrogation.

According to the two human rights organizations, once the boys are arrested, their families are excluded from the following proceedings, which means that the boys are forced to endure this ordeal alone.

The report affirmed that the Israeli authorities pressure the detained Palestinian children to sign involuntary confessions that are sometimes written in a language they do not understand and which are later used as the basis for the indictments served against them.

The report, which was made based on testimonies given by 60 Palestinian minors who had been arrested and interrogated in Israeli jails, underlined that the Israeli authorities disregard the laws stipulating that minors must be held in age-appropriate conditions which include adequate food, health services, access to education, and visits by social workers and family members.

B'Tselem and HaMoked said that Israel tries to provide a legal cover for these systematic and extensive violations of the fundamental human rights of hundreds of minors every year.

The human rights report added that there is no possible justification for the extreme measures Israel's law enforcement system uses against East Jerusalem minors, noting that the reality described in the report is part of the Israeli control mechanism over the Palestinian population of Quds.