Palestinian Child Political Prisoners in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions Monthly Update November 2004

Date posted: November 08, 2004

By Child &Youth Department Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs

Key Figures and Facts:

300 Palestinian child prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. centers.
8 months is the average of sentences in 2004.
1650 NIS. Is the average of financial bills imposed on children.

Since the outbreak of Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, more than 2500 Palestinian children have been arrested. 300 children are still prisoned in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Most of them are held within the Israeli proper far from their place of residency. While about 400 Palestinian prisoners exceed age 18 in prison.

Children Arrest As the First Resort:

Israeli Occupation Authorities don’t deprive Palestinian children from their freedom as a measure of last resort and for a minimum period of time (Article 37 of the CRC), instead of that, Palestinian children are being arrested as the first resort and imprisoned for long periods of time.

The Palestinian child priosners are subjected to various forms of inhuman and cruel treatment-including beatings, sleep and food deprivation, position abuse (Shabeh), threatening language (including threats of death, sexual assault, and/or threats on his/her life or that of family members) and isolation-while undergoing interrogation by Israeli General Security Services, the Military Intelligence, or the Police. During interrogation Palestinian children are denied a contact with a lawyer or a relative. Lawyers are denied access during this period, and it is in fact very difficult to find out where a child is being held.

Prisoners without Rights:

The conditions in which the Palestinian children are held are below the minimum standards laid down by the UN (CRC and Beijing rules) and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The incarceration conditions of children have been deteriorating at an alarming scale, to the extent that the lives of the children are threatened.

The international human rights instruments lay down a series of guarantees to people who are arrested or detained. These guarantees must be applied to all without discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political opinion, social origins, birth or other status.

These guarantees include among others: the right not to be arbitrary arrested; the right to be informed of the reason of arrest; the right of access to lawyers; the right to inform or have informed their families of their arrest and place of detention; the right to be brought promptly before a judge; the right to challenge the lawfulness of detention; the right to have access to the outside world; and the right to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human being.

Few Palestinian living in the OPT who have been arrested or detained by Israeli occupation authorities enjoy these rights. Palestinians arrested by Israeli security services are under a system of military justice.

Military Orders and racial Discrimination:

The Palestinian child prisoners are tried before and sentenced by Israeli military courts, although the Palestinian Authority has a juvenile justice system that can deal with children in conflict with the law. The Israeli military courts implement military orders and not juvenile-related legislation. Unlike Palestinian child prisoners, Israeli children who are in conflict with the law are dealt with through the Israeli juvenile justice system.

According to Israeli military orders, a Palestinian child is any person who has not yet attained the age of 16 years, while article 2 of the Israeli juvenile Offenders Ordinance defines an Israeli child as any person who has not yet attained the age of 18 years.

Disproportionate Imprisonment:

Disproportionate imprisonment sentences are the only treatment disposition rendered under by the Israeli Military Court. There is a Palestinian child who has been sentenced to life imprisonment, 3 children are sentenced for 15 years, 4 children sentenced for 5-9 years.

As for the imprisonment period according to cases being represented by our lawyers in 2004, it was as follows:

Sentence	Number of children
NO charge (Administrative detention)	2
Financial bills only	7
2-4 months + financial bills	32
5-6 months+ bills	18
7-8 months	4
10-12 months	4
14-16months	4
18-24 months	8
26-30 months	4
34 months	1
9 years	1

Financial Bills:

The Israeli military courts of Ofer and Salim impose financial bills on sentenced child prisoners. Since the beginning of year 2004, 75% of sentenced children have been financially billed. The total sum of the financial bills imposed on 60 sentenced children amounts to (99,000) NIS. This means that the average of the bills imposed on children is 16502 NIS.

Sick Child Prisoners:

The Ministry records show that among the child prisoners, there are 30 sick children. The sick detainees are denied access to medical care and at the same time the Israeli authorities do not medically serve them.

The records show that 41.6% of theses diseases resulted directly or indirectly from the deteriorating unhealthy and inhuman incarceration conditions.

In general, child prisoners do not receive adequate and appropriate medical treatment. Acamol is prescribed for every disease. The prison authorities do not address themselves to the poor hygienic conditions in the children’s cells. Scabies, an infectious disease is present in most prisons. The children, who are frequently transferred from a prison to another, continuously transmit the disease to each prison. The prison authorities do not follow the doctors’ instructions for disinfecting the cells and the bedding.

Meanwhile, the child detainees suffer from diseases that are directly resulted from hard conditions of incarceration: rheumatic (from cold and damp cells), asthma (from poor ventilation), and hemorrhoids (from too heavily spiced food).

Distribution of child prisoners in detention centers up to October 2004

Prison/ Detention Centre	Number of child prisoners
Hasharon(Telmond):sections 7+12	93
Ofek Hasharon	3
Ramleh prison and Hospital	2
Ofer	34
Keseot(Naqab)	38
Meggeddo	44
Salim	3
Qadomim	2
Hewwarah	2
Jalameh	2
Etzion	39
Russian Compound(Masqobeyya)	12
Benyamin	23

Child Prisoners According Type of Imprisonment:

Imprisonment	Number
Pending Trial	209
Sentenced	72
Without Charge(Administrative Detention)	19

Children According to Origins:

Place of Origin	Percentage
Rural Areas	50%
Refugee Camps	15%
Urban Areas	35%

Child Prisoners According to Governorates:

As for the distribution of Detainees according to Place of residency, it’s as follows:

Governorate	Number of Child Prisoners
Jerusalem	24
Hebron	51
Tulkarem	18
Jenin	33
Nablus	83
Bethlehem	49
Ramallah	31
Qalqelyah	8
Tubas	2
Gaza	1

Child Detainees According to their Current Age:

Age by Yeras	Number of Detainees
12-14	8
15-16	87
17-18	205

Children According to Year of Arrest:

Year	Number of Prisoners
2001	2
2002	21
2003	122
2004	155

Child Prisoners According to Place of Arrest:

Place of Arrest	Percentage
Family House	77%
Street	17%
Military Checkpoint	5%
Near Settlement or Inside Israel	1%

Children According to family Size

Family Size (members)	Percentage
1-6 members	14%
7-12	74%
13-18	7%
More than 18	5%

Children According to Career

Career	Percentage
School student	83%
Laborer	14%
Without Career	3%

Incarceration Conditions in Israeli prisons and Detention Centers:

Most of Palestinian child detainees are currently held in Israeli jails and detention centers mainly within Israel proper. This means that the children are being held far from their place of residency.

Family visits are very rare due to Israeli policies and procedures and total siege imposed on the Palestinian territories. As for the lawyers’ visits, if he/she is allowed to visit his/her client, this should take place in the presence of at least two officers who usually understand Arabic and keep asking them to finish. This new regulation clearly infringes the confidentiality of the lawyer-client relationship and puts both the lawyer and the detainee under great pressure and sense of discomfort.

Children are held around the clock in their small, overcrowded, poorly ventilated cells. They can only leave the cells for an hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. They eat, sleep and pass day in their cells.

They have no program of activity, with very few recreational outlets or equipment. They spend day after day in their cells without anything to do. This is an exceedingly difficult situation for young and active youths.

Child detainees in the Israeli detention centers are totally isolated from the outside world; they are not allowed to watch TV, listen to the radio or read newspapers, noting that very few of them are allowed visits from their families and lawyers as in the manner mentioned earlier.

The child detainees suffer from the lack of sufficient beds. They sleep on the floor on thin mattresses and rotate between the floor and the beds. The cells do not get enough fresh air. The children suffer from a sense of suffocation, particularly the asthmatic patient patients in the summer.

The prison meals are not adequate for growing youths. Often there is not enough food or the food is spoiled or highly spiced.

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By: KARAMA

Date: 21/11/2018

The shocking human cost that occupation has taken on Palestinian women is laid bare in research published today. Combining research, extensive surveys, and first-hand testimonies from over 40 Palestinian women, Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation provides new insight into the gendered experience of occupation, looking into four issues in particular:

women refugees
the impact of residency revocation on Palestinian women in Jerusalem
the experience of women prisoners
Gazans’ access to health

Co-authored by four Palestinian NGOs – the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), and Women Media and Development (TAM), the report includes detailed findings that demonstrate how the oppression occupation has permeated women’s daily lives, and the particular impact is has had on women in Palestinian refugee camps, Palestinian women living in Jerusalem, women prisoners, and residents of Gaza who require health services.

The impact on refugee women

Researchers spoke to 500 Palestinian refugee women from 12 Palestinian camps (7 in the West Bank, 5 in Gaza). Their findings included the following:

A third of women surveyed had been directly exposed to physical assault by Israeli Occupation Forces. 9% had been exposed to threats of being attacked by police dogs during Israeli night raids on their homes.
Over a third (37%) of respondents had been exposed to detention or interrogation, while 38% said that they or members of their households had been exposed to verbal abuse during Israeli army raids, at checkpoints or while visiting religious places.
Nearly a quarter (24%) were forced to live in shelters or with extended family. 22% were forced to live under unhealthy conditions. 13% stated that the female and male members of their families were separated as a result of having to live in shelters.
More than one in five (21%) had been exposed to beatings or tear gas at Israeli checkpoints while they were pregnant. 4% reported that they aborted or gave birth at Israeli checkpoints.
The majority (64%- 321 cases) had been unable to visit religious or recreational places because of Occupation restrictions.

Jerusalem: Residency Revocation and Family Reunification

According to official figures, 14,595 Palestinians from East Jerusalem had their residency status revoked between 1967 and the end of 2016.

Through residency revocations, Israel has separated husbands from wives, parents from children, and extended families from one another, causing traumatic complications for women attempting to remain with their families in both Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This leads to traumatic fears of separation from children for mothers and an entrenching of patriarchal practices across society. Palestinian women living in Jerusalem lose residency rights if they get divorced or their husbands remarry. Limiting their access to justice, female victims of domestic violence fear reporting abuse to authorities in case they are forcibly transferred away from their children.

Women prisoners

Since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine in 1967, approximately 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained by Israeli military forces. According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs’ 2017 annual report, 1,467 children were arrested last year.

Our researchers spoke to prisoners who experienced physical and psychological torture at arrest and imprisonment, and traumatic, gendered treatment, including:

Women denied access to menstrual products while detained
A woman arrested while pregnant who gave birth while chained to a prison hospital bed
Ex-prisoners who report being subjected to rape and death threats during interrogation, including a girl in of 15-years old threatened with rape
Women who were subjected to frequent forced and violent strip searches
A prisoner who reported toothache, only to have the wrong tooth removed

Access to Health in Gaza

Israel exercises strict control Gaza’s borders, a policy of ‘actual authority’, constituting continued occupation, despite the withdrawal of its permanent presence. This control in particular affects those who need medical treatment outside of Gaza’s struggling health system, who require permission to leave. The report shows that the rate of approval applications is falling year-by-year:

92.5% of applications were successful in 2012
88.7% in 2013
82.4% in 2014
77.5% in 2015
62.1% in 2016

At the end of November 2017, the approval rate was only 54% – the lowest since 2006 when WHO began monitoring patient access from Gaza.

Of the 26,282 permit applications submitted by patients aiming to exit through Erez in 2016, 8,242 (31.4%) were delayed. Many applicants received no response from border authorities, even after lawyers filed formal applications on their behalf. These delays regularly extend months and years beyond medical appointments, worsening already life-threatening diseases and in some cases resulting in death.

Read the full report here, or download it here:

Palestinian Women – The Disproportionate Impact of the Israeli Occupation

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), issued a press release on the Eve of the International Women’s Day

By: Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

Date: 10/03/2018

Women represent half of the Palestinian population

The qualitative base of the structure of the population in Palestine the sex ratio stood at 103.3, which means that there are 103 males for every 100 females

The percentage of female-headed households

The percentage of female-headed households in Palestine was 10.6% in 2017, 11.2% in the West Bank and 9.5% in Gaza Strip.

fifth of the persons in Palestine got married at an early age (less than 18 years) in 2016

Early marriage reached to 20.5% among females and 1.0% among males of the total married population in Palestine; the rate was 19.9% out of the total married population in West Bank and 21.6% out of the total married population in Gaza Strip end 2016.

The highest rate of female early marriage in the West Bank was in Hebron 36.8%, and the lowest was in Jericho and the Jordan Valley 1.2% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in the West Bank. In Gaza Strip, the highest rate of early female marriage was 42.1% in Gaza Governorate, while the lowest rate was in Dier Al-Balah 7.1% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in Gaza Strip.

A continued rise in literacy among women

Despite the rise in literacy rates among females over the last decade, the gap is still in favor of males by 3.0%, female literacy rates was 95.6% compared to 98.6% for male literacy in the year 2017.

Rise in enrollment rate of females in high schools compared to males

Data showed that male enrollment in high schools was 60.5%, compared to female enrollment which was 80.4% for the year 2016-2017.

A gap in the participation rate and average daily wages between men and women

The female participation rate in the labor force was 19.0% of the total female population at work age in 2017, compared to 10.3% in 2001, while the male participation rate was 71.2% in 2017. There was also a pay gap in the average daily wages between males and females; the average daily wage for females was NIS 84.6 compared to NIS 119.6 for males.

Around half of the women are unemployed

The unemployment rate among women participated in the labor force was 47.4% compared to 22.3% for participated males. 65.8% of youth females aged of (15-29 years) were unemployed. While the unemployment rate among women with 13 school years and above represents 53.8% of women in this group.

Palestinian Women in Public Life

In 2017; 21.2% of the members of the local councils are females in the West Bank while 78.8% were males.

In 2016, 82.7% of judges were male, compared to 17.3% female, while 66.6% of registered lawyers were male, compared to 33.4% female and 82.0% of members of the public prosecution staff were male, compared to 18.0% female. Furthermore, Palestinian female ambassadors represented 5.8% compared to 94.2% male. Females represented 32.3% of registered engineers with the Union of Engineers while male represented 67.7%. On the other hand, in 2016, 12.4% of members of student councils in West Bank universities were females, compared to 87.6% males.

In the public sector, females represented 42.7% of civil servants, compared to 57.3% male civil servant. In the public civil sector, female Director Generals represented 11.3% of the total director generals, compared to 88.7% males in the same post.

To View this Report as PDF

Israeli Assault on Gaza By Numbers in 30 Days

By: Safa Agency

Date: 09/08/2014

Child Prisoners According to Place of Arrest:

Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation Date posted: November 21, 2018 By KARAMA

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), issued a press release on the Eve of the International Women’s Day Date posted: March 10, 2018 By Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

Israeli Assault on Gaza By Numbers in 30 Days Date posted: August 09, 2014 By Safa Agency

Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation
Date posted: November 21, 2018
By KARAMA

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), issued a press release on the Eve of the International Women’s Day
Date posted: March 10, 2018
By Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)

Israeli Assault on Gaza By Numbers in 30 Days
Date posted: August 09, 2014
By Safa Agency