Jerusalem News Agency Agencies

The Palestine Center for Prisoners' Studies said that the occupation targets Palestinian children with arrest and abuse, and focuses on Jerusalemite children in particular, as more than half of the arrests taking place in the Palestinian territories are of Jerusalemite children.

The Palestine Center explained that the arrest of children in the city of Jerusalem has clearly increased after the popular uprising that erupted following the martyrdom of the Jerusalemite boy “Mohammed Abu Khudair” in July 2014, accompanied by a strict policy of dealing with Jerusalemite children, which was revealed by the occupation media by demanding that the Public Prosecution impose severe penalties on Jerusalemite children, as a means of reducing the throwing of stones at military vehicles and police, as it claimed.

Researcher Riyad Al-Ashqar, Director of the Center, confirmed that the occupation has intensified its targeting of Jerusalem children with arbitrary arrest and abuse with the aim of creating a state of terror among children to affect their psychology and prevent them from participating in any confrontations with the occupation or confronting the incursions into Al-Aqsa, or even inciting on social media, in order to create a barrier between them and their national issues and their belonging to their land and holy sites.

Al-Ashqar pointed out that the cases of arrest of Jerusalemite children have clearly increased since 2014, which witnessed (600) cases of arrest. In 2015, the cases of arrest reached (700) children, and during 2016, the cases of arrest among Jerusalemite children reached (900) cases, and in 2017 (700) cases of arrest were monitored.

While the year 2008 witnessed (450) cases of arrest of Jerusalemite minors, and in 2019 (620) cases of arrest of children were monitored, and in 2020, the cases of arrest among Jerusalemite children reached 360 cases, and in 2021, 700 Jerusalemite children were among the detainees, and during the current year, 450 cases of arrest of Jerusalemite minors have been monitored so far.

Al-Ashqar revealed that the occupation did not stop at arresting the children of Jerusalem, but rather pursued them with many punitive and arbitrary measures, including house arrest, whereby the minor child is confined to the home for periods that may be extended according to what the occupation decides, which makes the child’s family his prisoner, which is a double punishment for all family members, as an alarm device is installed in one of the feet of the child sentenced to house arrest, so that it determines his location and the extent of his commitment to the punishment imposed on him and he is under the supervision of the police and the Israeli security services, and thus he is deprived of movement and going to school, and this generates aggression, distrust of others and isolation from society, and causes multiple psychological problems.

In addition to imposing heavy fines on children, no prison sentence or release is without a fine of no less than $300 per child, and sometimes reaching more than $3,000, as well as expulsion from homes for different periods.

Al-Ashqar explained that the occupation does not hesitate to target Jerusalemite children under the age of 12, as it has arrested more than 340 children under this age since 2015 in harsh conditions. Some of them were mauled by savage police dogs, and some of them were arrested after being shot and seriously injured, and all of them were subjected to one or more forms of torture and humiliation.

While the occupation forces use excessive violence during the arrests of Jerusalemite children, they often rely on heavily armed and masked special forces in the arrests, and they deliberately storm the house in a barbaric manner at night and kidnap the child from the arms of his parents, making him feel unsafe, beating him and putting him in a military vehicle harshly, and depriving the parents or the lawyer from accompanying the child.

Al-Ashqar added that the occupation is circumventing the laws to impose harsher punishments on Jerusalemite children. Despite the fact that military orders apply to children in the West Bank, and Israeli civil law applies to children in Jerusalem, there is no difference in actual practice between them, in terms of their exposure to violations and deportation.

The occupation amended the Penal Code by adding Article 275(a) with the aim of increasing the penalty for stone throwers and convicting them without the need to prove damages or prove that the accused intended to harm passersby. According to this, the occupation courts can issue a sentence against minors ranging from 10 to 20 years, as soon as a policeman accuses one of these children of throwing a stone at occupation patrols or settlers’ cars. This law often targets Jerusalemite children.

Al-Ashqar called on all international institutions to intervene to protect the children of Jerusalem from the arbitrary arrests carried out by the occupation authorities against them without reason, and the punishments imposed on them without any legal justification. He called on the Palestinian Authority to provide all forms of psychological, social and financial support to the people of Jerusalem to help them confront the occupation’s plans that aim to deport them and empty the city of its people.