Israel continues to arrest, abuse Palestinian children

In the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID19), the detainment of Palestinian children has only gotten worse as the world focuses on the public health crisis.  As of March 31st, 194 Palestinian children had been detained, which is a six percent increase since January. 

The detainment camps of Palestinian children are unsanitary, and the children often go without any form of adequate healthcare.Human rights for Palestinian children should not be a privilege, rather a mandatory enforcement of what all children deserve. 

For as long as I can remember, life in Palestine was just different. Each time I would go back to visit my homeland, faces I once knew were gone. In Gaza, this situation is much worse. As I passed starving refugees, in Nablus, many of them families and children, I saw that their eyes held pain, a documentation of their terror. The idea of crossing from a Palestinian childhood toward adolescence felt like passing through a dangerous jungle: a future covered in the same fate that many refugees endured. Recently, the International Criminal Court investigator has served a step for justice on the crimes committed against Palestinian Children. The ICC’s preliminary report showed that the military detainment of Palestinian children is against International laws for human rights. 

Since 2000, over 10,000 Palestinian children between the age of 12 - 17 have been detained, prosecuted, and incarcerated by Israel--often taken from their homes in the middle of the night by armed soldiers. While I was lucky enough to escape the horrors many of my Palestinian brothers and sisters face, my heart aches for their families--many of whom would go years without seeing their children, who in turn  may go years without the embrace of their parents.

Israel is the only developed nation to systematically imprison children as “prisoners of war” for no other reason than being Palestinian. This is blatant xenophobia, determining the worth of children and families based on the color of their skin and the side of the wall they were born to. Defense for Children International reports that 73 percent of the children taken to military detention are abused and beaten, and over 50 percent are tried without any representation or translator. To make this worse, 90 percent of the children are taken from their homes in the middle of the night, isolated from their families for months on end. The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears as more children are taken, changed forever. (All facts in this paragraph come from DCI 

It is clear that human rights are absent for Palestinian children. There are deep, complex politics to the land division of the region, but a land for Israel cannot come at the expense of Palestinian children. The world has been silent while Palestinian children are suffering. The plight of Palestinian children is not only a human rights issue, but an education, equality, LGBTQ, and a women’s rights issue. Peace between Israel and Palestine will only begin once human rights are respected for all Palestinians, especially the children suffering the worst of human conditions. 

Living in the US, I recognize the mirror image between IDF brutality and Police Brutality in the US against Black communities. In both cases, the systemic xenophobia ingrained into every aspect of life, is leading to the death of innocent human beings. We can not be silent on the issues that matter most: no justice, no peace. 

My anger for Palestinian children is just. 

My anger is warranted. 

And my priority now, is making sure these children are not silenced forever. 

I will not forget my first home, or the people I grew up with. Within me is their tenacity in times of immense destruction and sorrow, to thrive in a world where they can be free. We are personally responsible for being more ethical than the society we grew up in. So, I will continue working for a future where all Palestinian, Israeli, and other children will be able to close their eyes and see freedom in every direction. That they will open their eyes and see the future they have built together.