Human Rights and Democracy Media Center- SHAMS, emphasizes, on recognition of the Anniversary of Palestinian Child’s Day on April 5, that the Israeli occupation insists on killing and murdering Palestinian innocent children. The Israeli occupation is targeting Palestinian children systematically, through murdering, detention, displacing, denying freedom to mobility, and arbitrary detention. The Israeli occupation policies and practices against Palestinian children reveal the tendency of the occupation to kill Palestinian children and oppress childhood. Such a policy has always been a component within the Israeli and Zionist Ideology where the tendency for genocide and ethnic cleansing is seen in the daily practices of the Israeli occupation against Palestinians. The Center added that the practices of the Israeli occupation against Palestinian children are clear violations of international law and international humanitarian law and these crimes are affirmed as war crimes per international law.
SHAMS Center asserts that Israeli crimes and barbarian practices are legalized (in Israel), through a bunch of discriminatory military orders, mainly Order number 132 and the amendments of it. The given military order allows the arresting of Palestinian children below the age of 18 and interrogating/detaining them. Additionally, Palestinian children are litigated by military courts but not civil courts. At times, children all over the world enjoy their lives playing and entertaining in public yards and amusements, Palestinian children are suffering as a result of Israeli practices and procedures. The occupation confiscates Palestinian children’s right to play and dignified life. These crimes violate the United Nations Convention on Child Rights/ 1989. Article 19 of the given Convention states: “The child has the right to rest and leisure, to play and freely participate in cultural life and the arts”. Since the beginning of the occupation in the year 1967, the number of children arrested by the Israeli occupation reached 50 thousand where currently, there are 200 children in Israeli prisons and they are subject to all forms of oppression, torture, and cruel treatment.
SHAMS Center denounces the policy of home arrest applied by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian children, mainly in Jerusalem. The home-arrest policy is an arrogant, inhuman, and unethical policy and violates human principles and values and it is applied by the Israeli occupation authorities against children below the age of 14. During the previous years, the Israeli authorities issued thousands of home-arrest orders against children in Jerusalem. There are two types of home arrest where the first is to impose home arrest against children in their families’ houses without being allowed to leave the house for any reason. The second type is to put children under home arrest in a relative or a friend’s house away from the house of his family and residential place. The second type of home arrest increases the suffering and anxiety of children and their families.
SHAMS Center deploys the silence of the international community and international institutions in front of the Israeli crimes against Palestinian children within the ongoing aggression on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and intentional targeting of children. Since the beginning of the aggression on October 7, 2023, 39975 persons have been killed or missed, including 14500 children and 9560 women, in addition to 75577 wounded. 73% of the victims are women and children. Moreover, there are about 7000 missed persons where the majority of them are women and children. As a result to that, there are currently, 17 thousand children living without their parents where those are either orphans or disconnected from their families that none knows anything about them. Furthermore, two million persons, most of them are women and children, are displaced inside the Gaza Strip due to demolishing their houses. Students’ in the Gaza Strip are deprived of the right to education as the Israeli occupation demolished more than 100 schools and universities, entirely, while 305 schools were partially demolished leading to deprive 620 thousand students in the Gaza Strip from education. On a related level, children suffer from psychological trauma as a result of the war and fear and panic they face. On a related level, there are 450 martyrs in the West Bank, including 116 children. All life essentials for children were confiscated by the occupation where children sleep while hearing the horrible sounds of shelling and bombardment and they get up terrorized watching the scenes of demolished houses and killed persons. Children are living in a painful situation, they are persuaded by death from one place to another, and they pass all these circumstances, while the world stands silent.
SHAMS Center warns against the difficult health situation of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip as a result of the imposed restricted siege. Children suffer because of starvation and unavailability of drinking water and suffer due to the spread of infectious diseases and pandemics. There is no health system to rescue children as the Israeli aggression demolished the hospitals and medical centers. Moreover, there is a shortage of medicine and medical supplies as the official reports stipulate that approximately 70% of Gaza Strip residents suffer from real starvation and that the Gaza Strip is passing the highest level of starvation on the world level. 90% of children in the Gaza Strip (aged 6- 23 months) and pregnant women face critical nutrition shortages. Starvation and malnutrition caused the death of 34 persons in the Gaza Strip (30 of them were children). On a related level, there are 1088764 persons suffering from infectious diseases and 8 thousand cases suffering from viral hepatitis where they caught the virus while being displaced several times. Another 350 thousand persons who suffer from chronic diseases are facing slow death due to the banning of the entry of medicine and medical supplies. 10 thousand persons are suffering from cancer while there are 300 thousands persons suffering from Respiratory Tract Infections. Out of 200 thousand persons who suffer from Diarrhea, 50% are children below the age of 15. Twenty thousand children are born during the war and aggression and there are 60 thousand pregnant women who are at risk due to the lack of any kind of medical support. There are 183 delivery cases daily and one child out of 6 suffers from malnutrition and 3% of children from the Gaza Strip suffer from severe emaciation as a result of malnutrition.
SHAMS Center asserts that the systematic targeting of Palestinian children is a profound violation of international law and international human rights law, which grants children special protection under war, occupation, and armed conflicts. in particular, the Israeli occupation violates the Geneva Fourth Convention (dated 12/8/1949) as Article 17 of the given Convention states: “The Parties to the conflict shall endeavor to conclude local agreements for the removal from besieged or encircled areas, of wounded, sick, infirm, and aged persons, children and maternity cases, and for the passage of ministers of all religions, medical personnel and medical equipment on their way to such areas”. Article 24 of the same Convention states: “The Parties to the conflict shall take the necessary measures to ensure that children under fifteen, who are orphaned or are separated from their families as a result of the war, are not left to their own resources, and that their maintenance, the exercise of their religion and their education are facilitated in all circumstances”. Israel violates the international human rights law, mainly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on Child’s Rights. Likewise, the occupation state violates the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights/ 1966. On a related level, Israel is violating the United Nations Security Council Resolutions, mainly Resolution number 1612/ 2005 regarding the status of children under armed conflicts. At the same time, Israel is violating the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions, mainly Resolution 245/58 regarding the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflicts. Moreover, it violates Resolution number 157/48, regarding protecting children affected by armed conflicts.
SHAMS Center urges the international community, mainly the Secretary General of the United Nations, UN Special Rapporteur on Children under Armed Conflicts, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, UNICEF, International Commission of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, World Health Organization, and Governmental/ Nongovernmental international organizations to exert pressure on the Occupation’s government to halt targeting Palestinian Children. There should be pressure on the occupation state to stop the systematic killing of displaced Palestinians and civilians in the Gaza Strip.