Key Figures and Facts:

• 300 Palestinian child prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. centers.
• 8 months is the average of sentences in 2004.
• 1650 NIS. Is the average of financial bills imposed on children.

Since the outbreak of Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, more than 2500 Palestinian children have been arrested. 300 children are still prisoned in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Most of them are held within the Israeli proper far from their place of residency. While about 400 Palestinian prisoners exceed age 18 in prison.

Children Arrest As the First Resort:

Israeli Occupation Authorities don’t deprive Palestinian children from their freedom as a measure of last resort and for a minimum period of time (Article 37 of the CRC), instead of that, Palestinian children are being arrested as the first resort and imprisoned for long periods of time.

The Palestinian child priosners are subjected to various forms of inhuman and cruel treatment-including beatings, sleep and food deprivation, position abuse (Shabeh), threatening language (including threats of death, sexual assault, and/or threats on his/her life or that of family members) and isolation-while undergoing interrogation by Israeli General Security Services, the Military Intelligence, or the Police. During interrogation Palestinian children are denied a contact with a lawyer or a relative. Lawyers are denied access during this period, and it is in fact very difficult to find out where a child is being held.

Prisoners without Rights:

The conditions in which the Palestinian children are held are below the minimum standards laid down by the UN (CRC and Beijing rules) and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The incarceration conditions of children have been deteriorating at an alarming scale, to the extent that the lives of the children are threatened.

The international human rights instruments lay down a series of guarantees to people who are arrested or detained. These guarantees must be applied to all without discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion, social origins, birth or other status.

These guarantees include among others: the right not to be arbitrary arrested; the right to be informed of the reason of arrest; the right of access to lawyers; the right to inform or have informed their families of their arrest and place of detention; the right to be brought promptly before a judge; the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention; the right to have access to the outside world; and the right to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human being.

Few Palestinian living in the OPT who have been arrested or detained by Israeli occupation authorities enjoy these rights. Palestinians arrested by Israeli security services are under a system of military justice.

Military Orders and racial Discrimination:

The Palestinian child prisoners are tried before and sentenced by Israeli military courts, although the Palestinian Authority has a juvenile justice system that can deal with children in conflict with the law. The Israeli military courts implement military orders and not juvenile-related legislation. Unlike Palestinian child prisoners, Israeli children who are in conflict with the law are dealt with through the Israeli juvenile justice system.

According to Israeli military orders, a Palestinian child is any person who has not yet attained the age of 16 years, while article 2 of the Israeli juvenile Offenders Ordinance defines an Israeli child as any person who has not yet attained the age of 18 years.

Disproportionate Imprisonment:

Disproportionate imprisonment sentences are the only treatment disposition rendered under by the Israeli Military Court. There is a Palestinian child who has been sentenced to life imprisonment, 3 children are sentenced for 15 years, 4 children sentenced for 5-9 years.

As for the imprisonment period according to cases being represented by our lawyers in 2004, it was as follows:

Financial Bills:

The Israeli military courts of Ofer and Salim impose financial bills on sentenced child prisoners. Since the beginning of year 2004, 75% of sentenced children have been financially billed. The total sum of the financial bills imposed on 60 sentenced children amounts to (99,000) NIS. This means that the average of the bills imposed on children is 16502 NIS.

Sick Child Prisoners:

The Ministry records show that among the child prisoners, there are 30 sick children. The sick detainees are denied access to medical care and at the same time the Israeli authorities do not medically serve them.

The records show that 41.6% of theses diseases resulted directly or indirectly from the deteriorating unhealthy and inhuman incarceration conditions.

In general, child prisoners do not receive adequate and appropriate medical treatment. Acamol is prescribed for every disease. The prison authorities do not address themselves to the poor hygienic conditions in the children’s cells. Scabies, an infectious disease is present in most prisons. The children, who are frequently transferred from a prison to another, continuously transmit the disease to each prison. The prison authorities do not follow the doctors’ instructions for disinfecting the cells and the bedding.

Meanwhile, the child detainees suffer from diseases that are directly resulted from hard conditions of incarceration: rheumatic (from cold and damp cells), asthma (from poor ventilation), and hemorrhoids (from too heavily spiced food).

Distribution of child prisoners in detention centers up to October 2004

Child Prisoners According Type of Imprisonment:

Children According to Origins:

Child Prisoners According to Governorates:

As for the distribution of Detainees according to Place of residency, it’s as follows:

Child Detainees According to their Current Age:

Children According to Year of Arrest:

Child Prisoners According to Place of Arrest:

Children According to family Size

Children According to Career

Incarceration Conditions in Israeli prisons and Detention Centers:

Most of Palestinian child detainees are currently held in Israeli jails and detention centers mainly within Israel proper. This means that the children are being held far from their place of residency.

Family visits are very rare due to Israeli policies and procedures and total siege imposed on the Palestinian territories. As for the lawyers’ visits, if he/she is allowed to visit his/her client, this should take place in the presence of at least two officers who usually understand Arabic and keep asking them to finish. This new regulation clearly infringes the confidentiality of the lawyer-client relationship and puts both the lawyer and the detainee under great pressure and sense of discomfort.

Children are held around the clock in their small, overcrowded, poorly ventilated cells. They can only leave the cells for an hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. They eat, sleep and pass day in their cells.

They have no program of activity, with very few recreational outlets or equipment. They spend day after day in their cells without anything to do. This is an exceedingly difficult situation for young and active youths.

Child detainees in the Israeli detention centers are totally isolated from the outside world; they are not allowed to watch TV, listen to the radio or read newspapers, noting that very few of them are allowed visits from their families and lawyers as in the manner mentioned earlier.

The child detainees suffer from the lack of sufficient beds. They sleep on the floor on thin mattresses and rotate between the floor and the beds. The cells do not get enough fresh air. The children suffer from a sense of suffocation, particularly the asthmatic patient patients in the summer.

The prison meals are not adequate for growing youths. Often there is not enough food or the food is spoiled or highly spiced.