UN:
Palestinian Children Tortured, Used as Human Shields by
Israel
New UN human rights agency report claims Israeli forces arbitrarily arrest Palestinian children in Gaza and West Bank, subject them to degrading treatment, exploit them to scope out potentially dangerous buildings and use them as shields to deter stone throwers.
By Reuters
A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields.
New UN human rights agency report claims Israeli forces arbitrarily arrest Palestinian children in Gaza and West Bank, subject them to degrading treatment, exploit them to scope out potentially dangerous buildings and use them as shields to deter stone throwers.
By Reuters
A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields.
Palestinian
children in
Gaza and the
West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, are
routinely denied registration of their birth and access to
health care, decent schools and clean water, the UN
Committee on the Rights of the Child said.
"Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and
police are systematically subject to degrading treatment,
and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a
language they did not understand, and sign confessions in
Hebrew in order to be released," it said in a report.
The
Foreign Ministry said it had responded to a report by the UN
children's agency UNICEF in March on ill-treatment of
Palestinian minors and questioned whether the UN committee's
investigation covered new ground.
"If
someone simply wants to magnify their political bias and
political bashing of Israel not based on a new report, on
work on the ground, but simply recycling old stuff, there is
no importance in that," spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
The
report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
acknowledged Israel's national security concerns and noted
that children on both sides of the conflict continue to be
killed and wounded, but that more casualties are
Palestinian.
Most
Palestinian children arrested are accused of having thrown
stones, an offense which can carry a penalty of up to 20
years in prison, the committee said. soldiers in the Israel
Defense Forces had testified to the often arbitrary nature
of the arrests, it said.
The
watchdog's 18 independent experts examined Israel's record
of compliance with a 1990 treaty as part of its regular
review of a pact signed by all nations except Somalia and
the United States. An Israeli delegation attended the
session.
The UN
committee regretted Israel's "persistent refusal" to respond
to requests for information on children in the Palestinian
territories and occupied Syrian Golan Heights since the last
review in 2002.
'Disproportionate'
"Hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed and
thousands injured over the reporting period as a result of
the state party military operations, especially in Gaza
where the state party proceeded to (conduct) air and naval
strikes on densely populated areas with a significant
presence of children, thus disregarding the principles of
proportionality and distinction," the report said.
Israel
battled a Palestinian uprising during part of the 10-year
period examined by the committee.
It
withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in
2005, but still blockades the Hamas-run enclave, from where
Palestinian militants have sometimes fired rockets into
Israel.
During
the 10-year period, an estimated 7,000 Palestinian children
aged 12 to 17, but some as young as nine, had been arrested,
interrogated and detained, the UN report said.
Many
are brought in leg chains and shackles before military
courts, while youths are held in solitary confinement,
sometimes for months, the report said.
It
voiced deep concern at the "continuous use of Palestinian
children as human shields and informants", saying 14 such
cases had been reported between January 2010 and March 2013
alone.
Israeli soldiers had used Palestinian children to enter
potentially dangerous buildings before them and to stand in
front of military vehicles to deter stone-throwing, it said.
"Almost all those using children as human shields and
informants have remained unpunished and the soldiers
convicted for having forced at gunpoint a nine-year-old
child to search bags suspected of containing explosives only
received a suspended sentence of three months and were
demoted," it said.
Israel's "illegal long-standing occupation" of Palestinian
territory and the Golan Heights, continued expansion of
"unlawful" Jewish settlements, construction of the
separation fence into the West Bank, land confiscation and
destruction of homes and livelihoods "constitute severe and
continuous violations of the rights of Palestinian children
and their families", it said.
Israel
disputes the international position that its settlements in
the West Bank are illegal. It says the wall it built there
during the uprising stopped Palestinian suicide bombers from
reaching its cities.
In
March, Palmor, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, had said that
officials from the ministry and the military had cooperated
with UNICEF in its work on the report, with the goal of
improving the treatment of Palestinian minors in custody.
"Israel will study the conclusions and will work to
implement them through ongoing cooperation with UNICEF,
whose work we value and respect," he said, in response to
the UNICEF report.
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