Palestine Children's Day: 160 children in Israeli occupation prisons
Some 1,300 children have been detained during 2021, an 140% increase from 2020.
The number of Palestinian children detained at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces since 1967 exceeded 50,000, Commission of Detainees and Ex-detainees' Affairs member Abdul-Nasser Farawna said Monday.
Today is Palestine Children's Day, and on this occasion, Farawna revealed that 1,300 Palestinian children were detained over the past year, an increase of 140% from 2020. He also said the Israeli occupation forces detained more than 200 children since the start of 2022, 160 of which are still in custody.
Over the past few years, he said, the Israeli occupation authorities have gone too far with their crimes against Palestinian children, as the Knesset discussed several laws relating to the rights of Palestinian children.
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Those laws include the legislation on taking children below 14 to trial, in addition to increasing the mandatory minimum over throwing stones in occupied Al-Quds.
Farawna underlined that the Israeli occupation went above and beyond and imposed house arrests, which has become a common means of punishment in occupied Al-Quds, which turned hundreds of Palestinian homes there into jails for the Israeli occupation and turned the people of Al-Quds into jailers of their own children and minors in compliance with the parole imposed by the Israeli occupation courts.
Former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat declared the 5th of April as Palestine Children's Day during the Palestinian Children's Conference. He also announced during this conference Palestine's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.