Dear H.E UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Under Secretary-

          H.E. Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos

Children’s rights are human rights. But Palestinian children’s rights are under attack.

As a group of regional and international organizations and human rights defenders, we urge the international community in the International Child Day to take all necessary action to support the release of all Palestinian minors in the Israeli prisons.

Since 2000, Israeli military authorities have detained, interrogated, prosecuted, and imprisoned approximately 13,000 Palestinian children, according to estimates by DCIP.[1]

An average of 263 Palestinian children aged 12-17 years old were detained by Israeli authorities at any one time between January 2016 and September 2020, based on data released by the Israel Prison Service (IPS). During this period, an average of 51 young Palestinian children (12-15) were detained.

At the end of June 2023, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) was holding 147 Palestinian minors in detention or prison on what it defined as “security” grounds. At that time, the IPS was also holding 26 Palestinian minors for being in Israel illegally. 

Palestinian minors arrested by Israeli forces face immense emotional and physical abuse, according to the rights group Save the Children, which has revealed the tragedy minors go through as detainees; this is against the terms of the Child Agreement ،especially Article 16, which states:

"No arbitrary or unlawful interference with a child's private life, family, home, or correspondence, or any lawful prejudice to his honor or reputation."

Which also states:

“The child has the right to be protected by law from this exposure and prejudice.” The occupation does not take into account the young age of children when they are brought to court, and a special court is not formed for them, and the age of the child is set for less than (16) years based on Military Order No. (132).

this is a clear violation of Article No. (1) of the Child Convention, which defines a child as “every human being under the age of eighteen.”

Only 32 out of 766 (4.2 percent) Palestinian children reported that they received a summons by Israeli authorities for investigation and questioning. These summonses fall short of the threshold for constituting an arrest warrant because they do not include a reason for the suspicion or information on any charges.

Each year the Israeli military detains and prosecutes between 500 to 700 Palestinian children in Israeli military courts that lack basic safeguards for a fair trial. From the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces. Despite the fact that international norms reaffirm that civilians, including children, must never be brought before military courts, Israel persists in being the only country in the world to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts.

From the widespread ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children to the systematic denial of their due process rights emerges a system of control that masquerades as justice where arbitrary detention is the default policy.

Based on the foregoing, we, the undersigned organizations, on the World Children’s Day “For every Child, Every Right”, We demand

1)     The international community to put pressure on the Israeli occupation state and oblige it to implement international agreements on prisoners and detainees, especially child prisoners, and to work for their release.

2)     All international human rights organizations, especially those working in the field of children, such as UNICEF & DEI, to launch an international campaign to shed light on the suffering of child prisoners in Israeli prisons, and to work for their release.

  Signatory organizations: