The Palestinian Authority’s Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs (CPA) said in a Sunday report that almost 28 of the children in the Ofer prison, which is near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, suffer from different illnesses.
According to the report, a total of 161 Palestinians under the age of 18 were detained by Israeli troops from the beginning of the current year until the end of May.
Many of those arrested have reported flagrant rights violations against them by Israeli soldiers.
Heba Masalha, a CPA lawyer who was allowed to visit minor prisoners in Israeli jails, said on May 31 that Israeli soldiers “violently” beat and torture teenage detainees during questioning.
At least 182 Palestinian minors are reportedly locked up in Israeli jails, including 26 below the age of 16.
Last year, the International rights group Defense for Children International (DCI) said Israeli officials have denied legal counsel to 93 percent of the detained Palestinian kids.
In May, Issa Qarage, the head of the CPA, said Israeli interrogators are using oppressive and brutal methods to force Palestinians into confession.
Israeli forces routinely abduct Palestinians in the West Bank and put them behind bars based on the so-called administrative detention policy, which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows the regime to imprison Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.
More than 7,000 Palestinians, many of them without charge or trial, are reportedly imprisoned in 17 Israeli jails and detention centers.
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Publish Date: 9 June 2015 - 22:51
Tehran, June 9, IRNA – A total of 93 Palestinian children are currently imprisoned in the Israeli Ofer prison, eight of whom are serving various jail terms while the rest are yet to be sentenced, a report says.