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Contact Us Issue 2, 1 Aug - 31 Oct, 2007 
FOCUS: Children of Gaza
In This Issue of the Child Rights Monitor
 Gaza situation
 Political and security background
 Child rights violations
 Recommendations

This second issue of the Child Rights Monitor refers to the period of 1 August - 31 October, 2007. In September, Israel declared the Gaza Strip a "hostile entity" and announced further economic sanctions, including reductions in the supply of fuel and electricity, in order to pressure Palestinian armed groups to halt rocket attacks. By labelling Gaza as "hostile", Israel argues that it is no longer bound by international humanitarian law to ensure adequate utility supplies to the population of the territory it occupies. However, these collective punitive measures, as well as the continued closing or greatly reduced functioning of all border crossings in and out of Gaza, have resulted in further isolation of Gaza and worsened the already disastrous humanitarian situation faced by the population. Children, who make up 56% of the population of Gaza, are cruelly affected by the sanctions.

Gaza situation
Gaza has been under siege since an Israeli soldier was captured by three Palestinian factions in June 2006, and further punitive measures were taken after Hamas took over control of Gaza in June 2007. Economic and political sanctions have increased since mid-June, and these together with the lack of funding and the lack of coordination between Palestinian bodies have resulted in critical shortages in food, key pharmaceutical items, spare parts for essential infrastructure, and materials for humanitarian projects and industries. Most seriously, at the end of October, Israel's defence minister approved cuts in the supply of electricity and fuel to Gaza, as a form of collective punishment on the Palestinian population for the continued rocket attacks into Israel. UN OCHA reported an immediate 47 per cent decrease in supplies of regular diesel fuel, which will affect the provision of essential services, namely hospitals and ambulances, water treatment and sanitation, garbage collection, and many other public services.  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called these measures “punitive” and “unacceptable” [UN].
 
Access
Rafah crossing, the principle crossing point for 1.5 million Gazans into Egypt, last opened on 9 June. Gazans have been unable to leave for nearly five months, except for a limited number of medical cases, traders, and aid workers. Egyptian authorities report that at least 1,000 Palestinians are stranded in Egypt, waiting to cross back into Gaza. Karni crossing, the main crossing for commercial goods, has been closed since 13 June, with the amount of goods entering Gaza decreasing by 71% since then.  [UN OCHA] 
 
Health
With many advanced medical treatments unavailable in Gaza, critical medical cases are referred for care either to Egypt, Israel, Jordan or further abroad. With the tightening of the closure on Gaza, the situation in Gaza has deteriorated further with negative effects on the delivery of health services and a reduction in patients to be referred abroad for medical purposes. The number of patients refused entry into Israel for “security reasons” has also been on the rise, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
 

Child Health

- The percentage of children aged 0-3 attending UNRWA health facilities for treatment of diarrhoea increased by 25% in the summer of 2007 compared to the same period a year before. [World Health Organization, Health Sector Surveillance Indicators, Monitoring the Health Sector in the OPT/September-October 2007] Doctors point to poor quality drinking water as the main cause. Currently, 210,000 people only have access to drinking water for 1-2 hours a day. [UN OCHA]

- Over 73% of children aged 0-12 months who attended UNRWA’s health centres between January and June 2007 suffer from anaemia - the number rises to 77% in Rafah. [WHO]
Between 1 July and 31 October 2007, PHR-Israel received 178 appeals from Palestinians from Gaza whose request for access to medical care had been rejected by Israeli authorities. After PHR’s intervention, of these 178 cases, only 62 were finally given permits and allowed to leave Gaza, including a 16-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect. [Interview with PHR-Israel]
 
At least 10 Palestinian patients have died as a result of not being able to reach healthcare facilities outside Gaza. This includes an 8-year-old boy and an 18-month old infant who suffered from Down’s syndrome. [Palestinian Centre for Human Rights]     
 
Hospitals report daily electricity interruptions and severe shortages in stationary and medical forms needed for patient documentation. Shortages in pharmaceutical supplies have also been reported. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that supplies of paediatric drugs (in particular antibiotics and food supplements) have run out in local Primary Health Care clinics, and that stocks of chronic disease drugs are running low. In addition, shipments of supplies with authorisations obtained by WHO for Gaza were significantly delayed at Beitunya checkpoint in Ramallah. [UN OCHA]

See a case study about Mohammed, a nine-year-old boy who goes through Erez crossing regularly for medical treatment.  

Education
In September, one third of children attending UNRWA schools in Gaza began the school year without the needed textbooks. Paper, printing plates and toner faced delays in entering Gaza, resulting in a shortage of 350,000 books. [UN OCHA].

Construction work stopped on two Palestinian government schools in Rafah due to the general shortage of construction materials in Gaza. To cope with the resulting overcrowding in neighbouring schools, the Rafah Educational Directorate established an afternoon shift, forcing students to commute. Similar issues are affecting the renovation of two other schools in Rafah. [UN OCHA]

Political and security background
The schism between the West Bank and Gaza widened as the Fatah government of Mahmoud Abbas entered negotiations with Israel in preparation for the Annapolis conference in November, and Hamas resorted to increasingly violent means to suppress political opposition in Gaza. Gaza has been labelled a “hostile entity” by Israel, who subsequently increased the sanctions imposed on the people of Gaza. Violent internal Palestinian clashes broke out in Gaza City towards the end of October, in the worst internal fighting witnessed since June. Rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns were reported to have been used in the fighting. As a result, deaths resulting from internal violence doubled in October; there were 24 civilian deaths reported in October, compared to 12 in August and 12 in September [UN OCHA]; and for the first time in months, the number of children killed in internal violence in October (4) exceeds the number of children killed in the conflict with Israel (2).
 
Between August-October, 121 Palestinian civilians were reported killed and 441 injured in the conflict with Israel, both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; while 48 were reported killed and 411 injured in internal violence [UN OCHA]. However, reports of injuries sustained in the West Bank as a result of the conflict with Israel (252) are higher than in Gaza (189).
 
Between August-October, the number of Palestinian rocket attacks into or towards Israel slowly decreased from 120 in August to 56 in October, thus marking a significant step down from the 323 launched in May. Palestinian mortars fired also decreased from 181 in August to 129 in October. [UN OCHA].
 
Overall, during the reporting period, Palestinian militants fired a total of 273 Qassam rockets and 396 mortar shells towards Israel. One rocket hit a power line in Sderot, causing a blackout, and several rockets landed in Sderot, hitting several buildings and one house. No Israeli injuries were reported.   [UN OCHA]

The Israeli air force conducted 38 air strikes on Gaza during the reporting period (compared to 92 for the period May-July). Repeated incursions by military tanks and bulldozers into northern and eastern Gaza to conduct levelling and excavation operations coupled with air strikes resulted in 94 deaths and 189 injuries. [UN OCHA]

Child rights violations
The monitoring and reporting mechanism set up by Security Council Resolution 1612 seeks to ensure greater protection for children in armed conflict in six areas:

Killing and maiming
During the reporting period, 25 Palestinian children were killed as a direct or indirect result of the conflict in the oPt: 17 by the Israeli military, and 8 by Palestinian armed groups. Most of them (17) were killed in Gaza, and most of them (22) were boys, according to DCI/PS. June represented the highest death toll this year, with a total of 20 children killed.
  • Three of the 25 children killed were carrying arms, but did not attempt to use them;
  • Among the 25 killed, 7 children were 8 years old or under. The youngest child killed was a 2 year-old girl, from Khan Younis, killed by Palestinian unexploded ordnance.
 There were no reports of deaths or injuries of Israeli children during this period.
  • Overall, there is a slow decrease in the number of Palestinian children killed in direct conflict compared to the previous reporting period (36 versus 25 deaths) (see table below);
  • The vast majority of deaths continue to take place in Gaza (92% of deaths for May-July; and 68% of deaths for August-October).  
 
May
June
July
August
September
October
Israeli military
9
10
2
10
5
2
Palestinian groups
5
10
0
3
1
4
Total
14
20
2
13
6
6
Period total
36
25
Between August and October, UN OCHA documented at least 88 cases of children maimed or injured as a result of the conflict. Of the 317 cases of child injuries recorded by UN OCHA this year (January-October), 69% were caused by the Israeli army, 14% by Palestinian internal fighting, and 8.5% by Israeli settlers.
 
In the period August-October, at least nine cases of child injuries were attributable to settler attacks (two in August, six in September and one in October). In September alone, six children were physically assaulted by Israeli settlers. Two children were hit by settler cars and four were severely beaten by Israeli settlers in Hebron. In October, a two-year old girl was directly hit and run over by a settler car in Hebron [UN OCHA].
 
Recruitment
Recruitment by Palestinian armed groups
As yet no systematic attempts at recruiting children for military resistance activities have been identified, and DCI/PS documentation shows that most children arrested and detained by Israel for resistance activities are self-motivated (whether they attempt to throw Molotov cocktails at Israeli military jeeps, carry a knife to attack an Israeli soldier, make or carry bombs, etc). However, there are occasional reports of recruitment of children by armed groups.

Gaza-based NGOs have reported the following incidents to the Israel/oPt Working Group on UN Security Council Resolution 1612:
  • On 2 August, a 13-year-old boy was reportedly recruited by Hamas to monitor the streets at night and seek information on Palestinian collaborators;
  • On 30 August, a 16 year-old boy was apprehended by Israeli soldiers while he was approaching a fenced border near Beit Hanoun, Gaza, carrying a belt of explosives around his waist. The boy’s parents claimed that Al Qassam Brigades had recruited him;
  • On 9 September, Israeli soldiers searched a group of four children at the Beit Iba checkpoint, near Nablus, and found explosives in one of the boys’ schoolbag. He was arrested and claimed that he and his friends had been planning to use the explosives against Israeli soldiers.

Recruitment by the Israeli security service (Shabak)
In a 20 October press release, Human Rights Watch reported that Gaza patients seeking urgent medical treatment in Israel were only allowed to cross Erez if they submitted to harsh and lengthy interrogation procedures by the Shabak. HRW reported: “A father who recently accompanied his five-year-old son out of Gaza to receive care for an injured eye told HRW how he underwent questioning by Shabak at the border in a concrete room with a floor of metal grating that looked down onto an exposed basement. Interrogators sat behind bulletproof glass.” In some cases, medical cases were reportedly only allowed through the Erez crossing if they provided information to Israeli intelligence.

Abduction
 Local Gaza-based NGOs have reported the following incidents to the 1612 Working Group:
  • On 22 August, Israeli soldiers abducted 8 fishermen, 5 of which were children (aged 14-17) in Rafah. They were released after 15 hours;
  • On 13 August, a 14-year-old girl tending her sheep near Maghazi, Gaza, was attacked and abducted by Israeli soldiers; they beat her and interrogated her before releasing her without charge several hours later.  
Attacks against schools and hospitals
An UNRWA preparatory girls school in Beit Hanoun, Gaza was damaged by an Israeli air-to-surface rocket on 29 October, targeted at a Hamas member nearby [UN OCHA]. Ten days before, on 19 October, the UNRWA school in Al Shouka was closed after being hit by stray bullets, during an Israeli military operation east of Rafah. [UN OCHA] The same school was attacked previously, on 3 August, by Israeli soldiers manning tanks. The soldiers attacked the school’s compound, damaging school facilities after breaking the main gate. Soldiers also arrested two of the guards and used the school as a detention facility. They rounded up 50 people, 15 of whom were held inside the school for several hours before being taken elsewhere for questioning. [UNRWA]
 
Two other incidents of Israeli soldiers detaining either students or teachers after surrounding or attacking schools were reported between August and October 2007. On 26 September, after an alleged stone-throwing incident, soldiers surrounded Al Khadr Elementary School in Bethlehem for two hours, and detained three children [UN OCHA]. In another incident on 4 October, students were forced to leave their school in Burqa, near Jenin, after Israeli soldiers stormed it, fired teargas canisters and detained a teacher and a school attendant. [UN OCHA]
 
There was an incident on 29 October wherein masked Palestinians launched mortars at Israel from an UNRWA school playground in Beit Hanoun. Students, teachers and a guard had been evacuated earlier in the day because of an Israeli military incursion nearby. [UN OCHA].
 
There were three reported incidents of attacks or damage caused by Palestinian factions. Unknown gunmen threw two homemade bombs into the schoolyard of An Nuseirat Elementary School in central Gaza, on 4 October. No injuries or damage were reported. [UN OCHA] On 12 August, an UNRWA school window was broken by a stray bullet during training for a Palestinian faction in the former Slaw settlement. [UN OCHA] On 3 August, Islamic Jihad members fired a mortar shell at Israeli soldiers, who had attacked and were occupying Al Shouka’s UNRWA school. The mortar shell damaged part of the school’s boundary wall and destroyed the entrance gate. [UN OCHA]
 
Denial of humanitarian access/Freedom of movement
In October 2007, there were 561 manned and unmanned obstacles in the West Bank (including checkpoints, roadblocks, trenches and earth mounds). The average number of random or 'flying' checkpoints was 70. [UN OCHA]
 
From August to October, 81 hours of curfew were imposed on different parts of the West Bank. [UN OCHA]
 
At least 123 incidents of access denial or delay in the West Bank were reported by humanitarian organisations. There were another 86 incidents of ambulances reporting delays of over 30 minutes at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank. Ambulances were denied access at checkpoints 66 times. [UN OCHA]
 
Denial of access to schools
There were six reported incidents where UNRWA schools in the West Bank and Gaza were closed because of Israeli military-imposed curfew and/or Israeli military operations: 17 UNRWA schools were closed in Nablus (on 18, 19, 20 September, and 16 October) affecting 4,000 students, and at least five UNRWA schools in Beit Hanoun were closed on 10 October and evacuated on 29 October [UN OCHA].
  • Between 5-7 September, the Israeli military had imposed an age restriction on Palestinians aged 16 to 35 (male and female) from Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and Tubas preventing them from travelling southwards through all checkpoints. [UN OCHA] 
  • Since 12 September, schoolchildren in the village of Tel ‘Adasa in East Jerusalem have been denied access to their school after Israeli soldiers blocked the one passageway through the Wall into the town of Bir Nabala, located a kilometre away, where their school is situated. Since 24 September, the students have had to rely on the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem to coordinate their daily movement to and from school through the Qalandiya checkpoint, which is the only other way to access the school. There are fears among parents and B’Tselem that the children will be denied access back to their homes because the residents of Tel ‘Adasa live in an East Jerusalem area but do not have Jerusalem passes. They are not recognised as Jerusalemites and so they are at constant threat of deportation. [B'Tselem] 
  • At the beginning of October, unidentified, masked Palestinian men either prevented many children from attending UNRWA schools in the central Gaza area of Deir al Balah, or forced the children to leave their schools. All schools in Al Bureij Camp, half of the schools in An Nuseirat Camp, and all but one school in Al Maghazi Camp were affected, with reports of widespread class disruptions and school closures over two days. [UN OCHA]
Additional indicators monitored by the Israel/oPt 1612 Working Group:
 
Arbitrary arrest and detention
Ages of children in cases closed by DCI/PS over the reporting period
 
Age Group
Number
12 to 14 years
9
15 to 16 years
23
17 years
20
TOTAL
52
 
Palestinian children who are arrested by Israeli military forces in the West Bank are transferred to detention facilities administered by the Israeli Prison Service or by the Israeli military. In the period August-October 2007 there were 319-328 Palestinian children in Israeli detention at any given time. There were 11-14 children in administrative detention during this period, and by the end of October 2007, there were two female Palestinian children in custody awaiting trial.
 

Breakdown of cases closed by DCI/PS, by nature of charge

Name of Charge
Number
Conspiracy to murder
12
Stone throwing
10
Throwing/possessing bombs
8
Molotov cocktail (making or throwing)
7
Membership in Palestinian political organisations
4
Helping wanted persons
3
Shooting (but not killing)
2
Possession of weapon
2
Attempted murder
2
Other
2
Total
52

(children often receive multiple charges; only one charge - the most serious charge - has been retained here for statistical purposes)
Both girls, 16 years old, were arrested in separate incidents for possession of a knife, and are awaiting trial. Palestinian girls convicted of security offences are held in Hasharon prison, in the Telmond prison complex between Haifa and Tel Aviv. There, they are held in a separate section of the prison, with adult Palestinian female prisoners. Prison staff in this section is of mixed gender. There is no educational programme for female children, as there is for male child Palestinian security offenders. When punished, Palestinian female prisoners are transferred to Ramle prison, near Tel Aviv, and held in solitary confinement there, or they can also be held in solitary confinement in a cell at Hasharon. In the Hasharon cell, female child prisoners can be viewed by adult Israeli criminal offenders (some of whom are drug and sex offenders) through a large iron grate that serves as a door to the cell. [DCI/PS]
 
Between August and October, DCI/PS received 65 new cases of children before the Israeli Military Court (including two administrative detention cases, and including the case of a girl), and finalised 52 cases.

Torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
(for more information)

During the reporting period, DCI/PS lawyers conducted 32 visits to children in prisons and detention centres, and took statements from many of them about their experiences during their incarceration period.

 All children reported that they were arrested in early hours of morning (between 2-4am) at their family home while asleep. One child reported that arresting soldiers threw stones and sound bombs at the home in order to force the family to open the door. Another child reported that his mother was assaulted by arresting soldiers because she objected to his arrest, and as a result of the assault, fell to the ground.

All children reported being beaten and kicked when on the ground during their arrest and transfer in a military jeep to an interrogation centre. Many children reported being sworn at, threatened with harm to family members or with further beating, slapped on the head or face during interrogation. One child reported being held in solitary confinement for 15 days while awaiting interrogation; and another child reported being placed in a cell with collaborators and coerced into confessing.

Forced displacement
Forced displacement has been identified by UN and other agencies as one of the most pressing issues affecting children in the oPt.

Between August to October, 34 living units in the West Bank and Gaza were destroyed. As a result, in total, 184 Palestinians were displaced (117 people in 18 living units in the West Bank, and 67 people in 16 living units in Gaza). Of those displaced, 96 were children. [B’Tselem]
 
In addition to house demolitions, the UN has reported entire communities that have been forced to relocate. Five other communities in the Hebron and Bethlehem areas are in immediate risk of displacement for similar reasons. [UN OCHA]
 

Design by C. Seitz

The Child Rights Monitor, a bi-monthly report produced by Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCI/PS) and Save the Children UK (SCUK), provides up-to-date information on the rights of Palestinian children affected by armed conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), indicates trends, and makes recommendations.

Quick facts 
  • Children make up 52.2% of the oPt population; there are an estimated 2.1 million Palestinians under the age of 18. [PCBS]
  • By mid-2007, there were 4 million Palestinians in the oPt. (2.5 million, or 63%, in the West Bank, and 1.5 million, about 37%, in Gaza. [PCBS]
  • 69% of children in Gaza and 27% of children in the West Bank are refugees. [PCBS]
  • More than 70% of children under a year old in Gaza and 50% in the West Bank are anaemic. [UNICEF].
  • In Gaza, 10% of children under the age of 5 are stunted [UNICEF]
  • About 195,000 students attend 193 UNRWA schools in Gaza [UNRWA].
  • Over 2/3 of Gaza's UNRWA school students in grades 4-9 failed maths, and over 1/3 did poorly in Arabic. UNRWA attributed this to “occupation, closures, poverty and violence”. [UNRWA]
Child rights graphs 

Distribution of child deaths according to age group, from August to October

[DCI/PS, Note: numbers differ slightly between DCI figures and UN documentation until UN sources and DCI reconcile their indicators.]

Settler attacks during the reporting period
Children face increasing violence from Israeli settlers to such a degree that in some areas the Israeli military must be brought in to protect them. In the villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al Abeed, children need to be escorted by the Israeli military to go to school in At Tuwani, south of Hebron, to protect them from frequent attacks. Settler violence is of particular concern in several areas in the Jordan Valley and in the Hebron area. Between October 2006 and October 2007, there were at least 10 separate attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian students from Cordoba Elementary School in Hebron city, causing injury to at least 18 students. [UN OCHA]

Arrest case studies 


Mohanad, 17, Tulkarem
"I was arrested on 1 July 2007 at 2am at home. I was handcuffed and blindfolded...." 
See DCI/PS Case Study

Mu’ad, 17, Kofeen Village
Mu’ad was interviewed by a DCI/PS lawyer at Salem detention centre on 5 September 2007. He was arrested at home on 22 August 2007 at 3am.
See DCI/PS case study

About UNSCR 1612 
UN Security Council Resolution 1612 on Children and Armed Conflict, adopted in July 2005, established a monitoring, reporting and compliance mechanism on six grave child rights violations occurring in conflict (killing or maiming; recruitment or use of children; sexual abuse; abduction; attacks against schools or hospitals; and denial of humanitarian access).
 
The Israel/oPt monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) was established in April 2007, and reports on the six violations above, as well as detention, torture and forced displacement. The MRM includes UN agencies and non-governmental organisations, and reports every two months to a working group mandated to make recommendations to the Security Council. These recommendations can include the imposition, through country-specific resolutions, of “targeted and graduated measures.”


See the website of the Office of the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict for more information.

Recommendations 

Gaza recommendations

  • As Israel retains effective control of Gaza, it remains an occupying power and as such, must accept its responsibility for the welfare of Gaza’s civilian population, and put an end to punitive measures that deny essential goods and services to the civilian population of Gaza. These measures constitute collective punishment;
  • As a matter of urgency Israel must ensure that Gaza-based Palestinian patients in need of critical or lifesaving medical care have immediate and unimpeded access to healthcare facilities outside Gaza;
  • Israeli authorities should undertake independent investigations into allegations made by Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, about the Israeli Security Service’s coercive methods to obtain information from Gazans seeking medical care in Israel, or Palestinian child detainees;
  • All parties must resume full coordination with authorities in Gaza to facilitate the import of essential items.
 General recommendations
  • All parties should immediately revise their rules of engagement to expressly forbid the entering of or attacks on schools, or the use of schools for military purposes, in line with international humanitarian and human rights law principles;
  • In any use of schools as detention and interrogation facilities, senior officers or commanders issuing such orders should be held individually accountable;
  • Israeli authorities should undertake the independent investigation and prosecution of settlers involved in violent acts against children;
  • All authorities should refrain from using any acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against children during arrest, transfer, detention and interrogation in accordance with international legal conventions;
  • The security forces affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, and the forces affiliated with Palestinian political parties, commit themselves to a Code of Conduct with respect to recruitment and use of children in hostilities.
Contact us 

Child Rights Monitor
Website: www.childrightsmonitor.org
Email: crm@list.childrightsmonitor.org


Defence for Children International - Palestine Section (DCI/PS)
PO Box 55201, Jerusalem
Tel: +972 2 242 7537
Website: www.dci-pal.org
Contact person: Isabelle Guitard, isabelle@dci-pal.org


Save the Children UK
PO Box 18117, Jerusalem 91180
Tel: +972 2 583-8594
Website: www.savethechildren.org.uk
Contact person: Jennifer Moorehead, jennifer_scpal@palnet.com
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