WHY IS THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL GIVING ISRAEL IMPUNITY FOR ITS CRIMES AGAINST PALESTINIAN CHILDREN?

Protest by Women in Black (Vienna) at the Vienna International Centre against the inhuman and brutal ill-treatment by Israeli soldiers and settlers against Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Thursday, 11 June 2015) In spite of numerous reports by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other United Nations human rights organizations (United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Relief Work Agency (UNRWA), and international (Human Rights Watch), Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations Palestinian children are still the target of attacks, causing the killing and wounding, arrest and torture of children by Israeli soldiers and settlers. According to a new report Military Court Watch (www.militarycourtwatch.org) has lodged a submission with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture relating to the treatment of children held in Israeli military detention. The evidence relates to 200 cases of children detained in the West Bank since 2013. Since June 1967, up to 95,000 children have been detained by the military in the West Bank. It is therefore incomprehensible that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has cut Israel from the list of children’s rights violators which are guilty of violent crimes against children. Here is an incomplete list of Israel’s crimes against children. • Concerning the July/August 2014 attacks and massacres in the Gaza Strip (Operation “Protective Edge”) Defense for Children International – Palestine Section (www.dci-pal.org) reported on 16 April 2015 that “DCIP independently verified the deaths of 547 Palestinian children among those killed in Gaza, 535 of them as a direct result of Israeli attacks. (Four Israeli children were killed, while 4,249 Palestinian children and 22 Israeli children were wounded in that conflict in Gaza.) Nearly 68 percent of the children killed by Israeli forces were 12 years old or younger. Those who survived these attacks will continue to pay the price for many years. More than 1,000 children suffered injuries that rendered them permanently disabled, according to OCHA.” • Early in the morning of 2 July 2014 Mohammed Abu Khdeir disappeared while going to the mosque for morning prayers in Occupied Jerusalem. His thin body was found a few hours later charred and beaten. Before this, young Jewish settlers had poured gas down his throat and lit him alive after beating the 16 year old with a blunt object to his head. The autopsy report “showed soot in the victim’s lungs and respiratory tract, indicating he was alive and breathing while he was being burnt to death.” “B’tselem (Israeli human rights organization, www.btselem.org) noted in 2011 (updated January 2013): “When Israelis harm Palestinians, the authorities implement an undeclared policy of forgiveness, compromise, and leniency in punishment. Israeli security forces have done little to prevent settler violence or to arrest offenders. Many acts of violence have never been investigated; in other cases, investigations have been drawn out and resulted in no action being taken against anyone.” • Throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, Jewish settlers routinely run over Palestinian children. Two examples include an October 2014 hit and run near Ramallah of two 5-year-old Palestinian girls, one of whom – InasShawkat Khalil – died from her injuries. • An especially tragic chapter is the kidnapping and arrest of Palestinian children. Often children are torn from their sleep during nightly raids by the Israeli army; they are arrested and taken away, often blindfolded, without their parents being allowed to accompany them. (Parents from the West Bank or Gaza are not allowed into Israel without a special permission, which is usually difficult to obtain.) According to the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association’s April 2015 update, 182 Palestinian children are now imprisoned by Israel, including 26 under the age of 16. They note that “8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.” DCI Palestine further notes: “Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. Interrogations tend to be coercive, including a variety of verbal abuse, threats and physical violence that ultimately result in a confession.” It further notes that most Palestinian children arrested by Israel are nabbed in the middle of the night, something young people from villages resisting land grabs and the Wall, like Bil’in are very familiar with. Bil’in, known for its popular and non-violent demonstrations against the Wall, has lost many an inhabitant, including children, to Israel’s brutal attempts at stifling dissent. NGOs and Palestinians are outraged after the United Nations Secretary-General left Israel off of the list of children’s rights violators. WHY HAS ISRAEL BEEN CANCELLED FROM THE UNITED NATIONS “LIST OF SHAME” FOR ATTACKS ON PALESTINIAN CHILDREN? (Notizia della decisione ONU: http://www.internazionale.it/notizie/2015/06/09/israele-e-hamas-non-violano-i-diritti-dei-bambini-secondo-l-onu)