At least 1,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year, says the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs.
“Some of these minors were held under administrative detention, while others were sentenced to jail or paid large fine in order to be released,” said the committee in a report released on Saturday.
The so-called administrative detention is a manner of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows the Tel Aviv regime to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods.
The committee’s director, Issa Qaraqe, stressed that the released figures show a spike in such detentions since 2015 in the occupied territories and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
“Palestinian children were subjected to torture and abuse inside the Israeli jails,” he said.
He further called on international organizations to “protect Palestinian children from detention.” “This requires a wide and fast action from the international community,” he added.
More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, many of them arbitrarily.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to voice outrage at the so-called administrative detention policy, which is a form of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months.
Last year, the Israeli regime passed a controversial bill allowing the force-feeding of hunger-striking inmates.
