The Israelis have deprived Palestinian children in detention of family contact and one of their most fundamental rights: education
THERE are currently more than 350 Palestinian children incarcerated in the Israeli rape and torture dungeons, suffering inhumane abuse at the hands of their Israeli tormentors who have been widely documented as using trained dogs to rape detained Palestinians.
Among these incarcerated children are 65 general secondary school students who, according to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, have been prevented by the Israeli authorities from sitting their general secondary examinations this year.
“Since the beginning of the crime of genocide, they have faced harsh conditions characterised by torture, abuse, and ill-treatment, in addition to being deprived of the warmth of their families and of one of their most fundamental rights: the right to education,” the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) said in a statement at the weekend.
The statement by the PPS added that, since the start of the genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, the occupation authorities have intensified arrest campaigns targeting students at various stages of education. It explained that this escalation came in the context of the radical and dangerous transformations that have affected the reality of detainees, including child detainees, and the conditions of their detention, as the occupation authorities targeted all the achievements that prisoners had won through long decades of struggle, foremost among them the right to education.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society pointed out that detainees’ right to education had, over many years, constituted one of the most prominent rights for which detainees had struggled to secure recognition, despite repeated attempts by the Israeli prison administration to deprive them of it.
Despite Israeli policies of deprivation, prisoners succeeded in entrenching and preserving this right. However, with the beginning of the genocide, the Israelis stripped them of all their rights and turned their dungeons into open spaces for torture and abuse around the clock.
The PPS affirmed that the Israeli prison administration currently practises a comprehensive policy of systematic torture, humiliation, and abuse aimed at breaking detainees psychologically and physically.
These practices particularly affect child detainees and students.
The Israelis have systematically targeted educational infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. According to a UN report from February this year, the Israelis have damaged or destroyed “approximately 97 per cent of school buildings” and “95 per cent of higher education campuses” since the start of the genocide.
This wholesale destruction has forced surviving students to continue their education in tents and makeshift classrooms under extremely difficult conditions.
Worse still, the Israeli genocidaires have ensured that Palestinian children are not safe even in their makeshift classrooms.
The Israelis have targeted Gaza’s tent schools, killing students — for example, 9-year-old third-grade student Ritaj Abdul-Rauf Reehan, who was killed while attending class inside a makeshift tent school in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, in full view of her classmates in April — and making education an altogether arduous undertaking for the children and their parents.
Despite the catastrophic conditions, high school students in the Gaza Strip did extremely well last year, demonstrating their thirst for learning at a time when survival, rather than schooling, dominated everyday life.
In its statement, the PPS called on international human rights organisations and United Nations bodies concerned with human rights, children’s rights, and the right to education to assume their responsibilities regarding the escalating crimes to which detained Palestinian students are undergoing.
On the evidence of the past 32 months, however, it is unlikely that Palestinian appeals will move the needle. The 65 incarcerated students are being denied not only their right to education but also their right to live in freedom and dignity under unceasing Israeli brutality. — Palestine Will Be Free
