UN slams Israel for abusing Palestinians’ human rights

The UN Human Rights Committee has slammed Israel for violating the rights of Palestinians and the maltreatment of Palestinian prisoners.

The committee published conclusions on Thursday from its review earlier this month of the Israeli regime’s human rights record.

The report expressed grief over Israel’s continued destruction of Palestinian houses in the occupied West Bank, censuring the ongoing “confiscation and expropriation of Palestinian land and restrictions on access of Palestinians” in the occupied territories including East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The committee also condemned reports on the use of torture by Israeli prison authorities and maltreatment of Palestinians, including children, in Israeli detention facilities.

Elsewhere it expressed concern over human rights abuses committed during three Israeli wars on the besieged Gaza Strip since late 2008, including the latest military aggression of summer 2014 that left nearly 2,200 Palestinians dead.

The Geneva-based committee emphasized in its conclusions that Israel should make sure that all human rights violations carried out during “its military operations in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 are thoroughly, effectively, independently and impartially investigated.”

The perpetrators must be prosecuted and the victims and their families must receive effective remedies, the report stated.

The UN committee slammed Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza, saying the siege continues to “negatively impact Palestinians’ access to all basic and life-saving services such as food, health, electricity, water and sanitation.”

The Gaza Strip has been under the Israeli blockade since June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living and poverty in the Palestinian territory.

MR/HSN/SS

Source : Press TV

Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System

Palestinian children testify about cruel treatment by Israeli soldiers

Submitted by Adri Nieuwhof 2012 .

Newly released today, Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI) has produced this short film about Israel’s ill-treatment of Palestinian children during their arrest, transfer and detention. 

Alone: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System contains images of children who found the courage to talk about the appalling treatment.

Since 2000, around 7,500 Palestinian children from the occupied Palestinian territories have been detained, interrogated and imprisoned within the Israeli military law system. The film also presents basic information and the impact of their arrest and detention on families.

In 75 procent of the cases documented by DCI, child detainees suffered some form of physical violence during arrest, transfer and interrogation.

The suffering starts the moment a child is arrested and continues throughout interrogation and court sessions, explains DCI lawyer Iyad Misk. Children are often physically, verbally abused, insulted by soldiers during transport in the jeep. The abuse continues during the interrogation.

Children are also often enticed with offers of immediate release in exchange for confessions. However, what normally happens is just the opposite. Once a child confesses, he is sent to prison and his file is sent to the court. Interrogations are set up to terrorize, says Misk.

Nader Abu Amsha of the East Jerusalem YMCA Rehabilitation Programme says that the purpose of the raids, arrests and interrogations is more than getting information. It is to break the will and spirit of a generation. The purpose is to break the children and make them live in fear and confusion so they become an inactive, unproductive generation.