Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission on Thursday said that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have arrested 562 Palestinian children in the West Bank and Jerusalem since the US president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The Commission said in a statement that Israel has stepped up its arbitrary arrest campaigns against Palestinian children recently and arrested about 562 children over the past three months and a half.
It added that the number of detained children constitutes 25% of the number of Palestinians arrested by the IOF during the same period.
The Commission slammed Israel’s disregard for all international conventions which stipulate that the detention of children should be a last solution that is done in exceptional cases and for the shortest period possible.
Moreover the Commission added Israel has approved a set of laws which allow the detention of Palestinian minors and the imposition of harsh penalties on them pointing out that the detained children are subjected to many forms of physical and psychological torture.
It called on all local and international institutions to shoulder their responsibilities and pressure Israel to release about 350 children who are still languishing in Israeli jails.
In a related context the Commission condemned an Israeli court’s decision sentencing the Palestinian teenager Ahed al-Tamimi to eight months in prison and forcing her to pay a fine of $1500.
Head of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission Isa Qaraqe described the court’s decision as “arbitrary par excellence” saying it was made without fair trial.
The IOF arrested al-Tamimi on 19th December 2017 from her house in Nabi Saleh village west of Ramallah after she was accused of slapping Israeli soldiers who attempted to break into her family’s house.
