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Cairo,- Palestinian children have lived under the horrors of Israeli occupation for more than seven decades, burdened with trauma, suffering, pain and resentment caused by Tel Aviv policies.
In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the livelihoods of millions of people are marked by the consequences of the occupation, which has affected all Palestinians in one way or another since 1948.
The measures implemented by the Tel Aviv government and armed forces have a direct impact on the daily lives of Palestinians, and children in particular are the most vulnerable sector.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 2.35 million children under the age of 18 in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, or 43.9 percent of the total population.
Various studies confirm the serious psychological and social problems that minors face as a result of the conflict. Added to these traumas are poverty, lack of housing, arrests and beatings against them or their loved ones, and lack of water, electricity, education and health.
In the Palestinian territories, 2.1 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, including 934,000 children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned in December.
They suffer from the violence, brutality and crimes committed daily and in an organized manner by the Israeli security forces, Social Development Minister Ahmed Majdalani recently condemned.
The violations systematically practiced by the Tel Aviv troops not only leave a mark on our minors, but also deprive them of their most basic rights, Majdalani said in a statement to mark the Palestinian Children’s Day, observed on April 5 every year. . .
The official stressed that five Palestinians under the age of 18 have been killed by the neighboring country’s military since early 2022, and 78 in 2021.
SERVICES CRISIS
In its latest report released last year, Unicef warned of an increase in stunting among Palestinian children, rising from 7.4 percent in 2017 to 8.7 percent in 2019-2020.
The international organization pointed out that in the occupied territories only 59 percent of households have drinking water, although its distribution is very unequal: while in the West Bank it reaches 95.1 percent, in the Gaza Strip it reaches only 6.3 percent.
The Palestinian Authority is heavily dependent on international aid, making it very difficult to provide quality basic services such as aqueducts, roads and housing, many of which are being systematically destroyed by Israel.
In the Gaza Strip, the situation is even more serious with damage to sewage, electrical and drinking water systems, largely due to regular attacks by Israeli forces.
The last military operation in the coastal enclave in May 2021 caused economic damage of $570 million, according to the World Bank.
A UNICEF study highlighted that 88 percent of infants in the area suffered psychological damage after this bombing wave. “Trauma, nightmare, agoraphobia: Even children are not spared from the consequences of the war,” he warned.
Like adults, children suffer daily from the effects of the wall built by Tel Aviv in the West Bank, as well as the many checkpoints and Jewish settlements, with severe impacts on access to education, water and health.
In both areas, poverty forces many children to drop out of school to work.
REPRESSION
Another problem faced by this section of the population is the repression of the Israeli security forces.
A report by the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) revealed that the police and army have detained more than 9,000 young children and teenagers since 2015. Currently, 160 children under the age of 18 are serving sentences in different prisons in this country.
The PPS warned that many of them are arrested at night in their homes, beaten in front of relatives, handcuffed, held for hours without food or drink and interrogated without their parents present.
They are also forced to confess and sign documents without knowing their contents and are detained in interrogation centers for periods of up to two months.
The Prisoners Society has criticized the delay in issuing visit permits for relatives; even, he stressed, in many cases they are denied this right.
Israel deprives many Palestinian minors of their right to education, medical care, clothing, personal belongings and books, and punishes them repeatedly.
In March, the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked appealed to the Supreme Court against the arrests of Palestinian children and young people at night. The NGO denounced night-time detention as a widespread practice, which it said violated international standards.
For its part, the organization Save the Children denounced the existence of physical and verbal violence, threats and isolation in prisons.
A survey by the facility found that 80 percent of the detained children suffered beatings, verbal abuse, and strip searches, while 90 percent complained of a lack of proper medical care.
Almost half did not have access to legal counsel and most were threatened with attacks on their families.
Save the Children stressed that throwing stones is the most common charge against them and it can carry up to 20 years in prison.