Jerusalem: Israel has detained 1,200 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to data released by Palestinian rights organizations jointly.
According to Anadolu Agency, the data was published in a joint statement by the Palestinian Commission for Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners Society, and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. The statement was released on Saturday to coincide with Palestinian Children’s Day, observed annually on April 5.
The statement highlighted that child detainees face ‘torture, starvation, medical neglect, and systematic deprivation on a daily basis.’ These harsh conditions recently led to the death of the first child prisoner since the onset of the Gaza war. Seventeen-year-old Walid Ahmad from Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, died at Megiddo Prison in northern Israel.
Last week, both the Detainees Affairs Commission and the Prisoners’ Society confirmed Ahmad’s death. They cited forensic results indicating systematic starvation as the primary cause of his deteriorating condition and eventual death.
The rights organizations noted that arrest campaigns targeting children have escalated to unprecedented levels. These campaigns aim to ‘uproot them from their families and strip them of their childhoods during the bloodiest phase in their history.’ Since the onset of the conflict, children’s detentions have surged dramatically. In the West Bank alone, at least 1,200 children have been arrested. The organizations stated that the exact number of detentions in Gaza remains unknown due to ongoing forced disappearances.
The organizations have renewed their call for international human rights bodies to take ‘concrete actions to hold Israeli leaders accountable for ongoing war crimes and to impose sanctions against them.’ To date, the identities of 63 prisoners who died in custody have been confirmed, including 40 from Gaza.
Over 9,500 Palestinians, including women and more than 350 children, are currently held in Israeli prisons. They are reportedly held under harsh conditions according to both Palestinian and Israeli human rights reports.
Tensions remain heightened across the occupied West Bank, where more than 944 Palestinians have been killed and around 7,000 others injured, based on official Palestinian figures. The International Court of Justice declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal in July and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.