Palestine

Israel drafting bill to jail Palestinian kids under 14

Israel is drafting a bill that would allow Palestinian children under the age of 14 to be sentenced to jail, amid intensifying tensions in the occupied Palestinians territories.

Under the new bill being drafted, Palestinian children as young as 12 can receive jail sentences, but they would be kept in a closed treatment facility until the age of 14, when they would start serving the sentence, Haaretz reported.

The bill makes no distinction between those convicted of a terror-motivated crime and those convicted of other crimes.

Hundreds of Palestinian minors are reportedly detained in Israeli jails for throwing stones.

In a report released in September, the International rights group, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), said that nearly 2,000 Palestinian children have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli military forces and illegal settlers over the past 15 years.

The NGO noted that Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion activities in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and West Bank are increasingly creating a “hyper-militarized environment” for Palestinian children, where they are highly exposed to disproportionate violence from both Israeli forces and settlers.

According to the DCIP, Israeli soldiers killed 12 Palestinian children in East al-Quds and the West Bank in 2014, with the majority of the fatalities caused by live ammunition.

This comes as escalations are rising between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the occupied territories. The tensions in recent weeks were triggered due to the Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds in August.

More than 80 Palestinians have been killed in the recent clashes.

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