Just the Facts: Children’s Rights
- 83% of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem live below the Israel-defined poverty line.
- In 2019, 5,289 permits were issued to minors in Gaza allowing them to travel to obtain medical treatment; only 4,165 permits were issued to their parents, leaving 100s of children without their parents while receiving medical treatment.
- In Hebron, Palestinian children living and/or studying in schools in the Old City must walk through up to 4 Israeli military checkpoints just to reach school.
- 62% of Gazan children are depressed or feel chronic anxiety and fear.
- 500 to 1,000 Palestinian children are detained each year by Israeli forces; over 50% are arrested at night and report physical and psychological abuse during arrest, transfer, and interrogation.
- Over 70 Palestinian children have been killed in 2021 so far as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Sources
- “West Bank | East Jerusalem: key humanitarian concerns” from OCHA oPt
- “Forced Separation: How Israel’s Permit Regime Separates Children Undergoing Medical Treatment from Their Parents” from Physicians for Human Rights
- “Children in the State of Palestine” from UNICEF
- “Gaza: The Dead Zone” from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
- Military Court Watch’s “Factsheet”
- “Distribution of Palestinian Child Fatalities by Region” from Defense for Children International Palestine
Learning More
We suggest you look at the resources listed above and watch the documentary War Child: Children Of Gaza. To go deeper, we will be developing an extensive list of Additional Resources at the bottom of this week’s entry as well as a YouTube playlist on the subject.