A new report from the Britain Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group (BPAPPG) has highlighted the widespread detention of Palestinian children, by the Israeli state.
Under Occupation, which is based upon recent delegations to the West Bank by the Britain-Palestine Group and the Council for Arab British Understanding (Caabu) includes firsthand accounts from MPs that witnessed the trials of Palestinian minors, in the Israeli military court system. The report shows that approximately 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted every year in such courts and that at the end of January 2011, 222 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli jails.
The report also describes how children are arrested in early morning raids, during which time they are hooded, shackled and regularly subjected to abuse. While stone-throwing is the most common charge levied against children, they are regularly arrested indiscriminately and remanded in detention with little or no evidence. Courts therefore often rely upon soldiers’ testimonies and confessions, often extracted via coercion, to secure a conviction.
