[News] Status of Palestinian Children's Rights

Tue Sep 28 16:17:04 EDT 2004

Tuesday - 28 September 2004    From: <mailto:george at dci-pal.org>DCI/PS

Status of Palestinian Children's Rights:

Israel's violations of the right to life and security and the rights of 
children deprived of their liberty
during the second Intifada.

Contents:

I. Introduction
II. Right to Life and Security
III. Rights of Children Deprived of Their Liberty
IV: Conclusion
ANNEX I: Child Fatalities
ANNEX II: Palestinian Child Political Prisoners

I. Introduction

Since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising against occupation, or 
Intifada, on 29 September 2000, Palestinian children have suffered an 
unprecedented series of human rights violations as a result of Israeli 
military and settler activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories 
(OPT). Hundreds of children have been killed, thousands injured and 
arrested, and hundreds of thousands of others exposed to repeated violence, 
denied an adequate standard of living, and denied the right to education 
and adequate health care.

These violations are not the result of new measures that Israel has 
implemented in response to the Intifada. Rather, they are the result of 
Israel’s intensification of pre-existing policies implemented in the OPT 
that are aimed towards controlling Palestinian land and the movement of 
persons and goods in these areas.

Israeli restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement since September 
2000, along with Israeli military actions in the OPT, has caused a dramatic 
downturn of the Palestinian economy and a significant decline in the 
Palestinian standard of living. An estimated 60 – 70% of the Palestinian 
workforce is unemployed and over half the population is reliant upon direct 
food aid. Pre-existing conditions have been exacerbated in many parts of 
the West Bank since 2002 due to Israel’s ongoing construction of the West 
Bank Segregation Wall.

Constituting over half the population, and as the most vulnerable and 
dependent sector of society, Palestinian children are disproportionately 
affected by Israeli policies. Inability to access medical care, poverty 
levels that affect nutritional intake and interruptions in some 
immunization programs have all lead to an overall decrease in the status of 
children’s health and an increase in malnutrition and anaemia rates. 
Spiralling poverty, curfews and closures, the devastation of basic 
infrastructure, the ever-present threat of violence and the deliberate 
destruction of homes and schools have provoked a serious decline in the 
quality of education and the loss of school days.

In 1991, Israel became a State Party to the UN Convention on the Rights of 
the Child (CRC). In 2002, upon its initial review of Israel’s compliance 
with the CRC, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child underlined the 
applicability of the Convention in the OPT and Israel’s responsibility to 
implement its provisions therein. Likewise, in its 9 July 2004 Advisory 
Opinion concerning the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in 
the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the International Court of Justice 
affirmed the CRC’s applicability to Palestinian areas under Israeli 
occupation.

In spite of Israel’s clear and well defined legal obligation to respect and 
ensure Palestinian children’s rights, Israel continues to deny the 
applicability of human rights treaties to the OPT while its military forces 
simultaneously perpetrate systematic violations of Palestinian human rights 
as they enforce policies sanctioned by the government of Israel.

This report covers the period from 29 September – 30 June 2004 and focuses 
on violations of the right to life and violations suffered by children 
deprived of their liberty. It is based on DCI/PS documentation and adopts a 
rights based approach, examining Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children 
during this period through the lens of the CRC, the most widely ratified 
human rights treaty in history.

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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