Presentation by Betty Hunter (Hon. President of Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
7 for 7.30 @ de Koffie Pot, Left Bank, Hereford, HR4 9DG
Israel is denying the children of Palestine a future through military occupation and imprisonment. The international community must defend their rights.
Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military courts – between 500 and 700 each year. The Israel Prison Service revealed that an average of 204 Palestinian children have been held in custody every month since 2012.
Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalised throughout the process”. These were the conclusions of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report ‘Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations‘.
Palestinian children as young as 12 are routinely:
- Taken from their homes at gunpoint in night-time raids by soldiers.
- Blindfolded, bound and shackled.
- Interrogated without a lawyer or relative being present and with no audio-visual recording.
- Put into solitary confinement.
- Forced to sign confessions (often in Hebrew – a language they do not understand).
Ahed Tamimi – pictured above when much younger – is a 16 year-old Palestinian child potentially facing over a decade in an Israeli prison because of an aggressive political campaign against her family and her village.
Here is a 5 minute interview with Ahed, and a video report showing how her family has been treated.