Some 1k Palestinian Minors Arrested by IOF since January

By Staff, Agencies

“Israeli” Occupation Forces [IOF] have arrested some 1,000 Palestinian minors across the occupied West Bank, including the Old City of al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year, an independent and nongovernmental rights organization said.

In a report released on Monday, the Palestinian Prisoners' Center for Studies [PCBS] stated that “Israeli” forces had significantly escalated their actions against Palestinians this year, arresting 1,000 youngsters, including 73 under the age of fourteen, since January.

According to the PCBS, the goal is to discourage Palestinian youngsters from resisting the “Israeli” occupation, by ruining their educational opportunities, destroying their future, and creating a weak and cowardly generation, Press TV reported.

“The ‘Israeli’ regime does not hesitate to arrest wounded [Palestinian] children after shooting them, sometimes dangerously. It interrogates the minors in hospitals, and coerces them to make false confessions instead of providing them with treatment and medical care,” Riyad al-Ashqar, the director of the center, said.

“As a result of the intensive arrest campaign targeting Palestinian minors, the number of child prisoners in “Israeli” jails has soared to 230. They are being held at various wards inside Megiddo, Ofer and Damon prisons. They are suffering from very harsh detention conditions, and lack the most basic necessities,” he added.

The center announced that it has recorded the detention of 310 Palestinians, including 33 children and nine women, over the previous month, stressing that 230 minors are still being held behind bars in “Israeli” detention centers.

The center noted that the occupied city of al-Quds witnessed more than a third of the arrests, and the figure stood at 115 cases.

The PCBS said it had monitored eight arrests from the Gaza Strip, six of whom were young men that crossed the border fence on the eastern flank of the coastal sliver. Most of them were released and returned to the Strip after hours-long interrogations.

However, merchant Hassan Mohsen al-Sharafi, 31, and 42-year-old Amjad Ahmed Dardouna – both residents of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, were arrested as they were passing through the Erez checkpoint and remain in prison.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Center for Studies highlighted that seven journalists were arrested during the month of August for covering IOF attacks on Palestinians and their property in Masafer Yatta region south of the city of al-Khalil.

They were released hours later, after having promised to return for interrogation at a police station inside the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement.

The PCBS said “Israeli” forces also targeted female Palestinians during the month of August, and arrested nine women and girls, including the wives of two Palestinian prisoners.

Moreover, the IOF arrested 33 Palestinian minors, all of whom were school children, throughout July. The youngest children among them were Mahmoud Abu Jumaa and Muhammad Rajai Khweis, who are under the age of 11 and both residents of al-Quds.

“Israeli” prison authorities keep Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards.

Palestinian prisoners have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression.

Human rights organizations say the “Israeli” entity violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held at “Israeli” jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of the so-called “administrative detention”.

The “Israeli” Knesset has already approved a law that made way for prison officials to force-feed hunger strikers if their condition becomes life-threatening. The law sparked criticism from rights groups as a disrespect to the detainees’ choices.

Rights groups describe the entity’s use of “administrative detention” as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on the “Israeli” entity to bring its use to an end.