Ramallah: Israel has arrested more than 50,000 Palestinian children since it began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.
This came in a report released by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs on its official website, on the occasion of Palestinian child’s day, which falls on April 5 of each year. In 1995, the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat declared April 5 as the day of the Palestinian child.
A member of the Administration Committee of the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Authority in the Gaza Strip, researcher Abdel Nasser Farwana, stated in the report that the Israeli occupation deals with Palestinian children like adults, stating that they are subject to the same torture, investigation and detention conditions.
According to Farwana, Israel had arrested about 1,300 boys and girls in 2021, which is an increase of nearly 140 percent over what was recorded during the previous year.
Since the beginning of 2022, more than 200 children have reportedly been arrested, and Israel is still holding approximately 160 children in its prisons and detention centres.
Israel had occupied the West Bank since 1967 and established settlements on it, which are considered in violation of international law. More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
