Why are there so many Palestinian children in Israeli prisons? | News of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israel released at least 23 captive Palestinian children as part of a ceasefire agreement, highlighting Israel’s systematic prosecution of Palestinian children in military courts.
At least 290 Palestinian prisoners have been released in two batches since the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel took effect on January 19, ending 15 months of continuous Israeli bombing of Gaza.
According to the Addameer Prisoner Care and Human Rights Association, a human rights group based in the occupied West Bank, there were 320 children detained in Israeli prisons before the recent prisoner exchange.
What do we know about captured Palestinian children and why are they tried in military courts?
What do we know about Palestinian children imprisoned in Israel?
In 2016, Israel passed a new law allowing children between the ages of 12 and 14 to be held criminally liable, meaning they can be tried in court as adults and sentenced to prison. Previously, only those aged 14 or over could be sentenced to prison. However, prison sentences cannot begin until the child reaches the age of 14 [PDF].
This new law, passed by the Israeli Knesset on August 2, 2016, allows Israeli authorities to “imprison a minor convicted of serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter even if he or she is under 14 years of age.” According to a statement by the Knesset at the time the law was submitted.
This change took place after Ahmed Manasra was arrested in 2015 in occupied East Jerusalem when he was 13 years old. He was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 12 years in prison after the new law came into effect and, more importantly, after his 14th birthday. . The sentence was later reduced to nine years on appeal.
The non-governmental organization Save the Children estimates that an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained in Israeli military prisons over the past twenty years.
The reasons for arresting children range from throwing stones and participating in a gathering of no more than 10 people without a permit, on any issue that “could be interpreted as political.”
Under what law does Israel detain children?
Controversially, Palestinian prisoners are tried and sentenced before military courts, not civilian courts.
International law allows Israel to use military courts in the territories it occupies.
There is a dual legal system in Palestine, whereby Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are subject to Israeli civil law while Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law in courts run by Israeli soldiers and officers.
This means that a large number of Palestinians are imprisoned without due process.
“However, Israeli authorities regularly arrest Palestinian children during night raids, interrogate them without a guardian present, detain them for longer periods before bringing them before a judge, and hold those as young as 12 years old in prolonged detention pending trial.” and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in November 2023.
Nearly three-quarters of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank were detained until the end of the proceedings, compared to less than 20 percent of Israeli children, according to a 2017 report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Minors held in prisons were allowed to make a 10-minute phone call to their families once every two weeks during 2020, said HaMoked, a human rights NGO that helps Palestinians facing human rights violations under Israeli occupation.
How many Palestinian prisoners released so far as part of the deal between Israel and Hamas are children?
Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners, 120 of whom were serving life sentences, from its prisons on Saturday as part of the ceasefire agreement.
Two of them were children, each 15 years old. The oldest prisoner, Muhammad al-Tus, was 69 years old. He had spent 39 years in prison, after being arrested for the first time in 1985 while fighting Israeli forces.
The exchange that took place on Saturday was the second exchange since the ceasefire entered into force on January 19. Three Israeli prisoners and 90 Palestinian prisoners (69 women and 21 children) were released in the first exchange.
Only eight of the 90 prisoners were arrested before October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led Palestinian groups carried out attacks in southern Israel. The attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,100 people, the capture of about 250 others, and led to Israel launching a devastating war on Gaza.
Some Palestinian prisoners have been in Israeli prisons for more than three decades.
Prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti – who was one of the founders of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, also known as Fatah, the party that rules the West Bank – has been in prison for 22 years.
Tamer Qarmout, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that the release of Palestinian prisoners is a “huge relief” for families, even though it occurs in light of “horrific realities.” [the Israeli] works”.
Al-Qarmout told Al Jazeera: “These prisoners should have been released through a larger deal that ends the conflict and achieves peace through negotiations, by ending the occupation, but the harsh reality in Palestine is that as we speak, the occupation continues.”
How many Palestinians are in Israeli prisons? Were they subjected to abuse while in detention?
As of Sunday, there were about 10,400 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank in Israeli captivity, according to Addameer estimates.
In the occupied Palestinian territories, one in five Palestinians is arrested and charged at some point. This rate is twice as high among Palestinian men as it is among women – two out of every five men are arrested and tried.
There are 19 prisons in Israel and one prison inside the occupied West Bank that houses Palestinian prisoners. Israel stopped allowing independent humanitarian organizations to visit Israeli prisons in October, so it is difficult to know the numbers and conditions of people detained there.
Released Palestinian prisoners reported that they were beaten, tortured, and humiliated before and after the start of the war on Gaza on October 7.
How many Palestinian prisoners are detained without charge?
According to Addameer, about 3,376 Palestinians detained in Israel are subject to administrative detention. An administrative detainee is a person who is held in prison without charge or trial.
Administrative detainees, including women and children, and their lawyers are not allowed access to the “secret evidence” that Israeli forces say forms the basis for their detention. This practice has been applied against Palestinian detainees since the establishment of Israel in 1948.
The army has detained these people for renewable periods of time, meaning that the duration of detention is indefinite and can last for many years.
Among the administrative detainees are 41 children and 12 women, according to Al-Dameer.
What’s next?
Twenty-six more prisoners must be released during the first phase of the six-week ceasefire, in addition to hundreds more Palestinian prisoners. The next exchange will be next Saturday
Many hope that the next phase will end the war that has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million and left hundreds of thousands at risk of starvation. Talks start on February 3.
