Please join the #nowaytotreatachild campaign co-leaders from Defense for Children International - Palestine and American Friends Service Committee for a webinar on September 13 at 12 p.m. Eastern / 9 a.m. Pacific / 5 p.m. London time.
August was a dark month for Palestinian human rights. On August 5, the Israeli military launched a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killings of 17 Palestinian children, whose deaths DCIP continues to investigate. Less than two weeks later, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah-area offices of the six Palestinian civil society organizations criminalized by the Israeli government last October. Israeli forces welded the office doors shut and gave official notice declaring the organizations illegal. A few days later, two of the organizations' directors, including DCIP general director Khaled Quzmar, were summoned for interrogation by Israeli forces.
This webinar will discuss how you can advocate for accountability for both Palestinian children, especially those injured and killed in Gaza, as well as the Palestinian human rights defenders standing up for them.
Background
Approximately 2.9 million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank, of which around 45 percent are children under the age of 18.
Palestinian children in the West Bank, like adults, face arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment under an Israeli military detention system that denies them basic rights.
Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system whereas Palestinians live under military law.
Israel applies civilian criminal law to Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military courts.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.
Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process,” according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations.
Children typically arrive to interrogation bound, blindfolded, frightened, and sleep deprived.
Children often give confessions after verbal abuse, threats, physical and psychological violence that in some cases amounts to torture.
Israeli military law provides no right to legal counsel during interrogation, and Israeli military court judges seldom exclude confessions obtained by coercion or torture.
ABOUT #NOWAYTOTREATACHILD'S WEBINARS AND ZOOM:
For this webinar, we will be using the Zoom platform. Additional instructions and details for joining the webinar will be shared by email with individuals that have registered.