International law does little to define torture in a binding manner, but what has been happening to Palestinian children at the hands of their Israeli prison guards leaves little room for vagueness. Palestinian children suspected of minor crimes are being placed in outdoor cages in freezing temperatures for hours overnight until they face court charges the following morning. This discovery was made by the Israeli Public Committee Against Torture, a human rights association which estimates that up to 700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are subject to the Israeli military detention system each year. The majority of Palestinian child detainees are charged with throwing stones, and 74 percent experience physical violence during arrest, transfer and interrogation. While PCAT said the cage practice in Ramla was just one example of the torture and ill treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli law enforcement, it is one of the most heinous on record for it is designed above all to terrify children, degrading them to a level of inhumanity which is hard to believe even exists. The children are usually held for interrogation periods of 21 days or longer. During this time, no one, not even parents, adults or an attorney are allowed to visit. It is complete isolation. In their solitary confinement, these children are exposed to cigarettes, drugs, pornography and women brought to them by the occupiers. Many of these children end up as collaborators with the occupation which blackmails them with taped evidence of them using drugs and caught in lewd acts. Can the scene be any more terrifying and debasing? A child all alone being interrogated by an experienced security officer who has both the stick of the iron cage and the carrots of drugs and women? Israeli torture of jailed Palestinian children is a longstanding issue but it is drawing special attention in light of this week's hearing in the Knesset's Public Petitions Committee which said Israeli law as it currently exists was being violated by the manner of arrest and detention conditions of Palestinian children. The committee also took issue with the fact that the government appeared not to keep records of the frequency or scope of disputed practices like midnight arrests. Under Israeli law, the arrest of children is not permitted from 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. but Israeli forces usually raid the homes of Palestinian children late at night. Parents are not allowed to accompany their child during the arrest. Israel is the only nation to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. As such, the international community is urgently required to act against this occupation state for violating international laws in the first instance, and in the second to rescue Palestinian children who are being tortured in Israeli jails. The international community must respect its own laws and regulations which have never been observed by the occupation state of Israel. Last year, in the span of just three months, Israel was hit by two damning UN reports on Palestinian child abuse in prisons. However, the reports by UNICEF and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child - both of which cited the ill-treatment of Palestinian minors held within the Israeli military detention system as widespread, systematic and institutionalized, and expressed deep concern about the torture of Palestinian children by the military and the police - have not deterred Israel which arrested and tortured 3,000 Palestinian children in 2013. Israel continues not just to occupy but to humiliate.
