Ramallah, November 20, 2025 (WAFA) – Prisoners’ institutions (the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners Club, and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association) said that the Israeli occupation system is carrying out physical and psychological destruction operations against child prisoners through a series of systematic policies.
Prisoner institutions added in a press report published today, Thursday, on the occasion of World Children’s Day, that over the past decades, the Palestinian child has remained one of the groups most exposed to Israeli violations, whether through killing and injury, denial of education, night raids, or arrest, which has affected tens of thousands of minors since the beginning of the occupation.
The report indicated that human rights organizations documented more than 1,630 cases of children being arrested in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, during a short period of time, in addition to dozens of children from Gaza, who were arrested during the war and subjected to organized crimes, enforced disappearance, and prevention from visits, which prevented knowing their exact numbers.
The report indicated that 350 children, including two girls, are still detained in the occupation prisons, in conditions that completely contradict all international standards for the protection of minors, and they face crimes of torture, starvation, medical crimes, systematic looting and deprivation, in addition to collective isolation.
The report noted that recent testimonies from released children confirmed that the occupation authorities deliberately isolated them from the rest of the sections from the first hours of their arrest, and subjected them to severe beatings and direct abuse.
Documented data indicates that the vast majority of detained children faced at least one form of physical or psychological torture, within a deliberate system of violations that blatantly contradict international law, humanitarian norms, and all conventions related to the protection of children and their rights.
Organized crime:
The daily life of children inside the occupation prisons constitutes a repressive and dehumanizing system for childhood, and it has become more severe after the war of extermination, as children find themselves in closed and harsh environments that lack the most basic necessities of life (overcrowded and poorly ventilated rooms, few clothes and worn-out blankets, almost complete restriction of their movement within the sections, confiscation of their personal belongings, almost complete deprivation of communication with their families through visits or communications), which deepens their isolation from the outside world, and leaves them facing harsh conditions without any psychological or family support, and they face repeated raids and repression operations in their rooms, by special forces of the occupation army.
As for healthcare, medical crimes against children have escalated since the start of the war of extermination. As a result of the measures imposed by the prison system on prisoners and their deprivation of hygiene tools, there has been a widespread outbreak of skin diseases, most notably scabies, due to overcrowding and lack of hygiene. In addition, there is a total deprivation of treatment, delays in treatment, and reliance on painkillers that do not suit their health condition, and a refusal to transfer deteriorating cases to hospitals. Along with all this, children face the crime of starvation, which has greatly affected their health condition and caused them various diseases.
The captive child, Walid Ahmed, died of starvation:
The case of the child Walid Khaled Ahmed from the town of Silwad in the Ramallah Governorate, who died in Megiddo prison in March 2025, due to starvation, along with policies of deprivation and abuse, constitutes one of dozens of prisoners and detainees who died after the war of extermination, as a result of a series of crimes, most notably the crimes of torture and starvation, as in the case of the prisoner Walid Ahmed from Silwad.
Based on his autopsy report, the crime of starvation, including dehydration resulting from insufficient water intake, fluid loss due to diarrhea caused by colitis, and inflammation of the tissues in the middle of the chest due to air emphysema, all combined to cause his death.
Gaza’s captive children: Between enforced disappearance and torture.
With the start of the arrest campaigns in Gaza in light of the war of extermination, which, according to institutions and what they were able to monitor, affected dozens of children, the crime of enforced disappearance, and the restrictions imposed on visits, prevented knowing the exact number of them inside the occupation prisons and camps belonging to the occupation forces. Like all the detainees of Gaza, the testimonies and statements of the children among them exceeded the ability to imagine as a result of the systematic torture crimes, their use as human shields during arrest operations, the practice of medical crimes against them, in addition to the crime of starvation, collective isolation, and systematic attacks.
Administrative detention:
Arbitrary administrative detention is one of the most repressive tools used by the Israeli occupation against Palestinians, especially children, without clear charges or fair trials, under the pretext of a “secret file” that the child and his lawyers are denied access to.
Over the years, this practice has posed a constant threat to children, but its severity and escalation have become more pronounced since the war and the security and political shifts that followed the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. At this juncture, the occupying authorities have expanded their use of administrative detention against minors, reflecting a systematic approach targeting Palestinian children and stripping them of any legal protection, in flagrant violation of international standards that prohibit the use of administrative detention.
The data indicates that the number of children administratively detained has doubled, with more than 90 children now behind bars without charges, in what is considered the most dangerous precedent since this policy began.
These children live in harsh detention conditions, during which they are denied the right to defend themselves, and are subjected to repeated extension decisions that turn administrative detention into a state of open-ended detention without a time limit.
Harsh testimonies:
Prisoners and detainees institutions have documented dozens of harrowing testimonies reflecting the level of crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against children in prisons.
The child (M.K., 17 years old), who was arrested from the Sea Line – Netzarim while displaced at a military checkpoint in the early hours of the morning, says: “The soldiers stopped me and forced me to take off my clothes, leaving me in my underwear. Then they interrogated me standing for three hours before they tied my hands with plastic zip ties and blindfolded me. I was first taken to the “Sde Teiman” camp and then to Ofer, where I stayed for six months. We would sleep and wake up tied up inside the room, and the restraints were only removed during shower time, although we were sometimes deprived of showers for weeks. There were not enough clothes; just a thin, torn sheet that we would wash with water and cover ourselves with the mattress while it dried. As for the food, it was meager and very bad, not exceeding slices of toast and a small amount of cheese or a little rice throughout the day.”
He adds: “In Megiddo, the repression was almost daily; they would storm the rooms with dogs and sticks, beat us with belts, fire stun grenades and gas, and put each cub in the corner for a quarter of an hour of continuous beating. They did not provide us with any real treatment; they treated everything with ‘Acamol’ even if the situation was serious.”
In a second testimony, the child (S.R., 15 years old) recounts the details of his harsh arrest by the occupation forces during the evacuation of the Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, where he was used from the first moment as a human shield in the raids and combing operations, and was subjected to daily beatings, continuous handcuffing and blindfolding, and detention inside destroyed houses, before being forced to carry out dangerous tasks inside combat zones for 48 days.
(S.R.) was arrested after soldiers forced him to relay orders to residents to evacuate the area. He was then placed on a military tank and taken to the Shaboura neighborhood, where he was held in two consecutive houses for ten days, handcuffed, shackled, and blindfolded. During this time, he was systematically beaten every morning. After ten days, the occupation forces began forcing the child to enter houses before the troops to conduct “sweeps,” while the soldiers hid behind him at a distance of 30 meters, using him as a human shield, after dressing him in an olive-green “military uniform.”
With the continuation of the genocidal war against the Palestinian people despite the declaration of a ceasefire, and in light of the occupying state’s ongoing violation of the rights of Palestinian children and its commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity against them, the prisoners’ institutions demanded that the occupying state be obligated to stop the genocidal war, which takes many forms, and to immediately stop all the crimes it commits against children, and to respect and implement the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice considering the Israeli occupation illegal, and to boycott this occupation completely, impose sanctions on it, and hold it accountable for all its crimes.
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