Ramallah, April 22, 2026 (WAFA) – Maha Al-Sheikh
At 1:30 a.m., 13-year-old Thaer Haitham Hamayel from the town of Kafr Malik, east of Ramallah, woke up to the sounds of violent knocking on his door, before a military force from the Israeli occupation army stormed in and turned the stillness of the night into a scene of fear and chaos .
Within minutes, the child Hamayel was taken from his family with his hands tied, after his house was surrounded, stormed, and his family members were detained inside one of the rooms, before he was transported by a military jeep, inside which he remained for about an hour and a half until the arrest of the other child, Hosni Muhammad Safa (17 years old), from the same town .
The child Thaer added during a conversation with Wafa that he and the child Hosni underwent a quick medical examination inside the town, before being transferred to a room with an area of less than one square meter in an occupation army camp in the “Jaba’it” area, northeast of Kafr Malik, and he remained there all night .
He explained that they were later transferred to the investigation center where they were subjected to insults and beatings during the investigation, in which they remained for several hours. Then they were transferred, with their hands tied and eyes blindfolded, to a special section for cubs in Ofer prison, after their hair was shaved and their clothes changed .
He noted that he was brought before the occupation court twice during his eight-day detention, before being released on bail .
Prisoner institutions said in a report issued on the occasion of Palestinian Children’s Day that Palestinian childhood has never been outside the circle of targeting, but rather has been placed at the heart of policies of repression and control, especially in the post-war period, which is the harshest on child prisoners, whose number today is about 350 children in the occupation’s prisons, in addition to dozens of children who were arrested from the Gaza Strip in extremely dangerous conditions .
She added that the arrest of children is not an exceptional case, but rather a systematic and deeply rooted policy, noting that arrest campaigns since the outbreak of the American-Israeli war on Iran have affected more than 1,700 children in the West Bank, whether they were later released or remained in detention .
She explained that the arrests often begin with sudden night raids, during which children are taken away in handcuffs, some of them are beaten and subjected to cruel treatment, and are detained for long hours without food or water, sometimes blindfolded, leaving severe psychological effects .
She explained that the investigation stage is one of the harshest stages, as children are subjected to long hours of interrogation in conditions that lack the minimum requirements for life, without the presence of their parents or a lawyer, amidst psychological and physical pressures aimed at extracting confessions from them .
Regarding administrative detention, she noted that the number of children administratively detained reached about 180 by the end of 2025, where they are detained without charge based on the “secret file”, with detention orders being renewed frequently .
She stressed that the imprisoned children are suffering under harsh detention conditions, including severe overcrowding, lack of basic needs, being deprived of contact with their families, in addition to medical neglect and lack of food, which has led to the exacerbation of diseases and the deterioration of their health conditions .
She considered these practices to be a flagrant violation of international law, particularly the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child .
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