Palestinian Children and Israeli Military Detention
Debate between Colin Clark and Marsha De Cordova(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing it.
At the end of November 2017, 313 Palestinian children were held in Israeli prisons, and three out of four of them will have experienced violence during their arrest. The majority of children will be arrested in the middle of the night, when heavily armed police break into their homes and drive them to a military detention centre where they will be interrogated. Many report being beaten and abused after their arrest and while in detention. Children are often interrogated without their parents or a lawyer present. Under military law children can be held in detention for 90 days without seeing a lawyer, and as of this year two children are held under administrative detention, which is indefinite imprisonment without trial. Currently, more than 180 children are held in detention without having been convicted. Under the occupation, children can be held for one and a half years before their case goes to trial.
There are two legal systems in the occupied territories. If an Israeli settler is arrested, they will be tried under Israeli civilian criminal law; if a Palestinian is arrested, they are tried in a separate military court. Access to justice is segregated. A child’s nationality and ethnicity determine the type of justice that they receive under Israel’s occupation. After sentencing, nearly 60% of Palestinian child detainees are transferred from the occupied territories to the prisons of Israel, in violation of the fourth Geneva convention. That means that most will be unable to receive family visits, due to the freedom of movement restrictions placed on Palestinians and the long time that it takes to issue a visiting permit.
Marsha De Cordova
I will not.
If, step by step, we go through the journey of a child living under military occupation and what they will endure—the physical violence, the fear, the complete interruption of their life, and the huge swathes of time spent in detention—one thing become clear: this system is designed to repress, crush and intimidate generation after generation of Palestinians.
The military detention of children is a legal issue, and Israel is in breach of international law—namely the UN convention on the rights of the child and the Geneva convention. There is, of course, a deeper problem, because such detention is part of the cycle of humiliation and violence that characterises the continued illegal occupation of Palestine. That is a disgrace and should be condemned.
Finally, I wish to show my solidarity with Ahed Tamimi. Yesterday we celebrated the brave women in the UK who fought for their rights, often suffering the brutalities of the police and state as a consequence. Ahed Tamimi carries that flame forward for all young children such as her across the world—solidarity.