Israel is incarcerating 300 Palestinian children in its jails, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club revealed yesterday.

The figures, which were released to mark Universal Children’s Day, also highlighted that the number included ten girls in jail and approximately 100 Palestinian children currently under house arrest.

Head of the PPC Qadura Fares said: “Israel has arrested no less than 7,000 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 18 since the start of the Second Intifada in 2000.”

Fares also said that many of the children were arrested below the legal age and they became 18 while in Israeli prisons.

Since the start of the Jerusalem Intifada in October 2015, he said, the number of Palestinian children inside Israeli jails increased to the highest number since February 2009, noting that 400 have been held on numerous occasions.

He revealed that 116 of the Palestinian children currently inside Israeli jails are between 12 and 15 years old, noting this is the highest number since January 2008, the year when the Israeli prison service started to give details about imprisoned children.

After 2015, the Israeli occupation approved several racist laws against Palestinian children, including laws that stipulate sentencing children to long terms in prison – sometimes, according to Quds Press, to ten years or life sentence.

Source: Quds Press International News Agency
Translated by: Middle East Monitor
In collaboration with the Palestinian Media Forum