CRC/C/ISR/CO/2-4
Region et al. (HCJ 3799/02, Judgement of 23 June 2005) as recommended by the
Committee in 2010 (CRC/OPAC/ISR/CO/1, para. 25) in this respect. The Committee notes
with deep concern that:
(a)
The State party’s soldiers have used Palestinian children to enter potentially
dangerous buildings ahead of them and to stand in front of military vehicles in order to stop
the throwing of stones against those vehicles as observed by the Special Rapporteur on the
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering
Terrorism (A/HRC/6/17/Add.4, para.48);
(b)
Almost all those using children as human shields and informants have
remained unpunished and that the soldiers convicted for having forced at gunpoint a nineyear old child to search bags suspected of containing explosives only received a suspended
sentence of three months and were demoted.
72.
The Committee urges the State party to immediately abide by the High Court
of Justice in Adalah et al. v. Commander of the Central Region et al., to take active
measures to prevent the use of children as human shields and informants, effectively
enforce the prohibition to use of children as human shields and informants and ensure
that perpetrators are brought to justice and punished with sanctions commensurate
with the gravity of their crimes.
Administration of juvenile justice
73.
The Committee commends the State party for the significant improvement of its
juvenile justice system which contains a wide range of guarantees and safeguards for Israeli
children in conflict with the law. The Committee is however concerned that the State party
fully disregarded the recommendations it made in 2002 and 2010 in relation to arrest and
detention of Palestinian children and their detention conditions and has continued to deny
all these guarantees and safeguards to children living in the OPT who remain subject to
military orders. The Committee is gravely concerned that an estimated 7000 Palestinian
children aged from 12 to 17 years, but sometimes as young as nine years, have been
arrested, interrogated and detained by the State party’s army over the reporting period, (an
average of two children per day), this number having increased by 73 per cent since
September 2011 as observed by the United Nations Secretary General (A/67/372, para 28).
The Committee expresses deep concern that:
(a)
Most of the Palestinian children arrested often on an arbitrary basis as
testified by several Israeli soldiers are accused of having thrown stones, an offence which
can carry a penalty of 20 years of imprisonment;
(b)
236 children are currently detained for alleged security reasons; dozens of
them are between the ages of 12 and 15;
(c)
Arrested Palestinian children can be detained for four days before being
brought before a judge (eight days until August 2012), are rarely informed of their rights,
including their right to have the presence of a parent who are often not even aware of the
place where their children are detained, and to have access to a lawyer;
(d)
Palestinian children arrested by the State party military and police are
systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated
in Hebrew, a language they do not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to
be released;
(e)
Children are brought in leg chains and shackles wearing prison uniforms
before military courts where confessions obtained from them under duress are used as the
main evidence. The lawyers they meet for the first time do not have access to a translated
version into Arabic of military orders which will be applied to children;
19