Record numbers of Palestinian children are being held without charges by Israel, a Palestinian children’s rights group reports, as international leaders and corporate news outlets focus mainly on Israeli captives in Gaza.
Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) said in a report on Monday that, as of December 31, 112 Palestinian children were being held in administrative detention — a form of detention in which authorities arrest and hold a person without charges or a trial. The group cited data from the Israeli Prison Service.
This is the highest number of Palestinian children held without charges by Israel since DCIP began monitoring this trend in 2008, the group said.
“Detaining children indefinitely, without charge or trial, amounts to arbitrary detention,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, who directs DCIP’s accountability program, in a statement. Arbitrary detention is a violation of international humanitarian law.
These children make up over a third of the 300 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons and torture camps as of the end of last year. According to DCIP, Israel detains and prosecutes roughly 500 to 700 Palestinian children per year.
DCIP says that almost all of these children were arrested as Israeli military and settler violence escalated across the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, amid the genocide in Gaza.
Some children, including some reportedly in administrative detention, have been released as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement. But DCIP says that Israeli officials have issued threats against the families of the released children to discourage them from talking to the media.
In Israeli detention, children face severe and horrific conditions, with the vast majority facing beatings by Israeli soldiers, strip searches, or deprivation of food and water, research by Save the Children found in 2023.
“Palestinian child detainees have consistently reported increased instances of ill-treatment and torture alongside deteriorating prison conditions since October 7, according to documentation collected by DCIP,” the group said.
In September, DCIP reported that the number of children Israel was holding in administrative detention had quadrupled over the past year.
Israeli forces regularly arrest Palestinians without charges. The majority of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and torture camps have never been formally charged with any offenses, and they are often denied access to legal representation or any other form of recourse.
Further, though administrative detention orders are supposed to have a maximum time limit of six months, Israeli officials can renew detention indefinitely, using information not even made available to the detainee. There are thousands of Palestinians being held this way, according to Israeli prison authorities.
Human rights groups have said that Israel’s detention practices stand in violation of international law and deprive their victims of due process, even the people who are formally charged. They also violate laws specifically safeguarding children’s rights, rights groups have said.
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