Arab League calls for global action to end Israeli crimes against Palestinian children

“The international community must take serious action and stop Israeli violations [against] Palestinian children, protect them and guarantee their safety,” the Arab League announced.

Those are the words by Assistant Secretary-General of the League Haifa Abu Ghazaleh during a regional conference on preventing severe crimes against children in armed conflicts, which was co-hosted by Qatar.

“The international community must hold accountable those responsible for those violations and guarantee their prosecution for their crimes,” he stated.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Abu Ghazaleh placed a premium on upholding international conventions to ensure the protection of children from violence.

Addressing the conference, Asem Khamees, deputy Palestinian minister of social development, said Israel “detained 7,500 Palestinian children between 2015 and 2020.”

“The number of Palestinian children who are prisoners inside Israeli jails has reached 170; all of them subjected to different forms of violations and torture,” Khamees added.

In January, a Palestinian rights advocacy group said Israeli forces had arrested a total of 7,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, over the course of 2022. The figure was released in a report issued by the Palestine Center for Prisoners’ Studies (PCPS).

“Israel arrested 865 Palestinian children, including 142 under the age of 12, in 2022,” said Riyad al-Ashqar, the director of the PCPS. Some of those children, he added, had not even reached nine years of age, and all detainees were subject to abuse, torture or humiliation.

The official stated in one such case, Israeli forces arrested two-year-old Hammoudi Amash at the Barta’a checkpoint, claiming he insulted the Israeli soldiers stationed there.

The damning report followed a statement released by the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs on 22, which said Israel had placed more than 600 Palestinian children under house arrest in 2022.