A June 2012 report by British lawyers has found significant violations of the rights of Palestinian children held in Israeli military custody. The report, “Children in Military Custody,” funded by the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was compiled by a group of British attorneys, including an appeals court judge and former attorney general. The group found evidence of a wide range of violations of international laws, including denial of access to lawyers, separation of children from their parents, physical violence, solitary confinement, and coerced confessions.
It also found stark differences between the application of Israeli civil law for Israeli children and Israeli military law meted out to Palestinian children in the West Bank. “It is uncontested that there are major differentials between the law governing the treatment of Palestinian children and the law governing the treatment of Israeli children.” The study noted that “Unequal or differential justice is not justice.”
The disparities were sharp: Israeli children could be held up to 24 hours before being brought before a judge, but Palestinians could be held up to eight days. Israeli children could be held up to 48 hours before having access to a lawyer, as compared to 90 days for Palestinian children. Palestinian child detainees could be held up to 188 days without being charged with a crime. For Israelis the limit is 40 days.
Israel’s own prisons service has documented the country’s practice of removing Palestinian child prisoners from the West Bank and transporting them to Israel for interrogation and detention. The lawyers writing the study found this a clear violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also charged that Israeli actions violated the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The new report’s findings were similar to those of a study released earlier this year by the human rights group Defense of Children International. The DCI study, based on 311 testimonies it received, found that abuse was widespread: Ninety percent of children reported being blindfolded; 60 percent reported they had been arrested between midnight and 5 a.m; 30 percent experienced physical violence, and 12 percent reported being held an average of 11 days in solitary confinement.
The human rights organization B’Tselem and DCI have both documented use of solitary confinement. The latest report noted that lengthy solitary confinement amounts to torture and violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international laws.
