The Palestinian Authority for Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs said that Israel is “assassinating the childhood of minor prisoners” in its prisons, based this on testimonies it quoted from lawyers.
The Commission stated in a statement that the minor prisoners detained in Megiddo Prison in northern Israel “are resisting, with their young ages and thin bodies, the assassination of their childhood by the prison administration.”
She added that this administration “is unique to them, and practices hateful punitive and retaliatory policies against them, based on beatings, torture, and daily abuse.”
The Commission reports – based on the testimonies it collected – that 120 minors are in “a difficult and complex reality in a special section for minors (under 18 years of age), the majority of whom are school students, including 18 from Gaza.”
It quoted the prisoners as saying, “We live in rooms with great overcrowding. Our number in one room ranges between 9 and 14 children. We suffer from the spread of scabby disease (scabies), which has appeared extensively as a result of depriving us of bathing, confiscating our clothes except the ones we wear, and not allowing us to possess soap, shampoos, and detergents.” And sterilizers.”
They added, “The infection increases daily, and we are deprived of medicines, treatment, and going to the clinic, knowing that there are cases among us in which the disease has reached advanced stages, and there is a real danger threatening our lives,” according to the same statement.
The authority quoted the minor prisoners as saying, “The symptoms of the disease appear on our bodies in a way that is disturbing both health and psychologically, and the vast majority of us cannot sleep, due to aches, pains, and spontaneous and strong itching.”
They pointed to “the spread of wounds and ulcers, and the worsening and seriousness of the disease with the rise in temperature,” explaining that “a child who seeks treatment is subjected to beatings and insults.”
According to the Commission, “child prisoners from Gaza are detained in two separate rooms, and are prevented from communicating with other children, and most of them suffer from injuries in different parts of their bodies, resulting from beatings and torture at the moment of their arrest.”
She pointed out that “the number of minors from Gaza two months ago was 34 children. Those who had reached the age of 18 were transferred to other prisons, and only 18 of them remained in Megiddo.”
The Commission expressed “its concern for the lives of young prisoners in prison,” calling on “childhood protection institutions and committees, locally and internationally, to strive seriously to stop these crimes against them, and to put an end to the occupation’s prison administration’s monopolization of them.”
