PCHR strongly condemns the horrible crime, in which a 9-year-old child was raped and killed by unknown persons and calls upon the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to investigate the crime and bring its perpetrators to justice.

According to preliminary investigations conducted by PCHR, on Monday morning, 6 December 2004, locals found a child's body, 9-year-old Samah Sufian al-Shamali, from Beit Lahia housing project, in Be'r al-Na'ja area in the northern Gaza Strip. Medical checking of the body revealed that she was killed by several stabs to the heart after she had been raped. The child had disappeared on Sunday evening, 5 December 2004, after he had left her grandfather's house to buy sweets. Efforts made by the Palestinian police to find her failed and she was found dead on Monday morning.

PCHR is gravely concerned by the increasing attacks on children in the Palestinian territory, and highlights a number of such attacks which caused confusion in the Palestinian society. In one of such attacks that took place on 25 September 2003, 4 young men kidnapped Mayada Abu Lamthi, 16, from al-Shati refugee camp, when she was on her way back home from school. Then, they raped and killed her. The Palestinian police was able to capture the perpetrators. Three of the perpetrators were sentenced to death, while the fourth one was sentenced to life imprisonment. On 30 November 2004, the head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Services Gaza declared that 5 armed persons who kidnapped Mohammed Anwar Shwaikh, 13, from Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, were arrested. Shwaikh was kidnapped on 11 November 2004, and the kidnappers demanded 50000 JD (approximately US$ 71000) to release him.

Such attacks constitute grave violations of human rights, especially as they were carried out against children who enjoy a special protection under international human rights law. Article 19(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child prescribes that "States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse."

PCHR calls upon the PNA to make intensive efforts to arrest the perpetrators of this latest horrible crime and bring them to justice. PCHR calls also upon law enforcement bodies to take necessary measures to ensure the safety of citizens.