“The survival, protection and development of children remain universal development imperatives -- imperatives that are crucial for human progress.”
– Carol Bellamy, UNICEF Executive Director
Israel has sustained one of the longest and oldest occupations in history, which has involved each Palestinian in an endless struggle to obtain their rights back. As part of a systematic attempt to undercut Palestinian efforts, Israel has tactfully targeted children’s educational pursuits, and more widely their hopes, deliberately denying their development.
Lots of international and human rights organizations tired to respond to the children’s crisis, but the Israeli occupation is widely known for its brutality and illegal measures, regardless of the position of the international community.
International Child’s Day offered the chance for the world to seek the truth and observe the injustice that is stealing Palestinian childhood. International organizations, especially UNICEF, released many reports presenting statistics that reveal the depth of this problem.
UNICEF’S report started with population statistics, which pointed out that 1.8 million Palestinian children – defined as persons under the age of 18 - live in the West Bank and Gaza, amounting to 53% of the Palestinian population.
Since September 2000, more than 573 Palestinian children were killed, 6,000 made homeless and almost 2,000 children were arrested, interrogated, detained or imprisoned.
Today, 337 Palestinian children are in Israeli prisons. Children, as young as 13 years old, are being held and subjected to several forms of physical and physiological abuse and mistreatment at the hands of Israeli authorities. A lot of cases involve children being held in the same cells with Israeli criminals.
1.2 million Palestinian children are of school age; this huge number of young students leads to spotting Israeli restrictions on Palestinian schools, such as closing schools and/or checkpoints and roadblocks leading to them.
During 2002-2003 school year, UNRWA’s 95 schools, distributed in the West Bank and Gaza and serving 60,000 students, reported 1,475 lost school days as well as a daily average of 145 teachers unable to reach schools. This of course applies to the rest of the Palestinian public and private schools suffering under the same circumstances.
According to UNICEF, school drop-out rates have been decreasing lately since children are being transferred to schools close to their places of residence, but the quality of education is worsening as a result of the same Israeli restrictions and attempts to ruin these children’s future and education.
Despite all these gloomy numbers, Palestinian children are optimistic about seeking a better future. A recent survey of 4300 Palestinian youths, between the ages of 10-24, indicated that 91% of children are optimistic about their future and 58.9% said that their first concern is education.
People should remember more than numbers after reading these reports, and international organizations should look beyond their statistics towards effective means of limiting Israel’s interference and dealing with this crisis.
