Dubai: A blindfolded Palestinian boy detained by dozens of armed Israeli soldiers. The bloodied face of another Palestinian boy is pinned to the ground by an Israeli occupation soldier’s boot.
These incidents are among dozens of captured moments of Israeli brutality against Palestinian children.
“Palestinian children have been suffering under (Israeli) occupation for 50 years. It has not stopped and it is still going on a regular basis,” said Alun McDonald, Amman-based spokesperson for Save the Children in the Middle East.
While the pictures get attention, there has not been much of international action to address those violations,” McDonald told Gulf News in an interview.
Violations range from intimidation and harassment to physical violence and arrest, champions of child rights have said. Palestinian children and teenagers are subjected to continuous Israeli oppression and brutality.
“There are two related factors. Teenagers are more rebellious, and therefore they are actively present in clashes with the Israeli occupying forces,” said Jihad Harb, a West Bank-based political analyst and writer.
And because they are on the streets in more numbers, they are targeted by Israeli occupying forces in an attempt to frighten them,” Harb told Gulf News.
“Not only do Israeli authorities extract information from them during interrogations, but Israel targets these children to scare their families,” Harb said.
According to Palestinian child rights advocates, Israel detains every year between 500 and 700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12.
The psychological impact of Israeli detention and violence can have long term effects, with some children dropping out of school as a result of the psychological trauma.
Not only are the Palestinian children targeted by the occupation forces but their schools too are. More than 50 schools and kindergartens in the West Bank face demolition orders.
Already the system suffers from a classroom shortage and most of the schools work double shifts.
In addition, children going to schools face harassment at border posts apart from physical violence and abuses by Israeli colonists.
In 2016, Unicef and Save the Children documented 256 education-related violations affecting the education of 29,230 students.
Pictures of suffering Palestinian children, have gone viral on various social media platforms and bring in a lot of sympathy to the Palestinian cause.
At the same time, these pictures “affect the image of the occupying Israeli army as targeting children and teenagers,” said Harb.
Commenting on some American criticism and accusations of Palestinians stage-managing these pictures, Harb said “the existence of occupation is forcing children onto the streets and confronting the occupation … Once the occupation is over, I don’t think there will be any child on the street fighting the Israelis. They will be with their families at home or in the fields during the harvest seasons.”
“Those children and teenagers don’t hold weapons and are not even trained to do so. There is no instigation for them but the occupation itself,” Harb said.
