Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) is calling on the Israeli government to release all Palestinian child detainees amid the COVID-19 crisis. According to Ha’aretz, Israel has confirmed over 700 cases of COVID-19 and four Palestinian prisoners, being held at Megiddo prison, have been in contact with an Israeli officer who tested positive for the virus.
“Israeli authorities must take immediate action to release all Palestinian child detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centers due to the increasing vulnerability created due to the rapid global spread of the COVID-19 virus and to safeguard their right to life, survival, development, and health in accordance with international law,” reads the group’s press release
Along with the American Friends Service Committee, DCIP has been pressuring the Israeli government to drop its child detention policy for years, through its No Way to Treat a Child campaign. According to DCIP, approximately 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces since 2000. From the testimonies of 739 Palestinian children detained by Israel over a five-year period, DCIP found that 73% of them experienced physical violence after their arrest.
The No Way to Treat a Child campaign, and similar efforts by Palestine Solidarity activists, led to the introduction of H.R. 2407 by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) in 2019. The legislation is an updated version of a bill that the congresswoman originally unveiled two years prior. It would prohibit foreign countries (including Israel) from using American funds to detain and prosecute children. McCollum’s bill is currently cosponsored by 23 Democratic House members, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Last month, DCIP senior policy advisor Brad Parker spoke to Mondoweiss about the history of the campaign, the decision to push lawmakers on the issue, and what comes next. “The longterm vision goes beyond these bills for sure,” said Parker, “We are pushing to secure basic rights for Palestinian children. There’s an entire system of discrimination that exists for Palestinians living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. We are pushing to end the occupation and the systemic discrimination and structural violence inherent in it. What we’ve recognized is that this kind of work needs political vehicles. You’re not going to get from A to B without actually building and creating a movement of citizens, individuals, but also policymakers to help you get there.”
“We know the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is for people to avoid being in close proximity to each other,” said DCIP Accountability Program director Ayed Abu Eqtaish in a statement, “There is no way Israeli prison authorities can ensure the health and well-being of Palestinian child detainees as long as they continue to be in a custodial detention setting.”
With Israel’s detention regime for Palestinians, simply to exert the maximum pressure and abuse on the maximum number of victims of Israeli racism, I wonder how that will effect Israel’s ability to fight something like the coronavirus.
When you have a racist state and you marshall extreme resources to keep another people down, to subjugate them and shut them up as much as possible in the face of your brutality, doesn’t that take away a lot of the resources you could use for fighting a disease that could kill many people?
You’re keeping people imprisoned and you’re directing your entire military to imprison those people and to subjugate their relatives in the Gaza concentration camp and the Bantustans of the West Bank.
It seems to me that Israel’s vicious racism is costly in a lot of ways. Not that anyone with a brain didn’t already know that.
@eljay
At least Catalan is consistent. Once again, desperate to make a point, he fails to do so.
If they release the children back into Palestine, wouldn’t some of them possibly be carrying covid-19 into Palestine? Maybe the children need to be tested before they are sent home. Then those who test positive should be quarantined in a safe manner until they are free of the virus. Things are less black and white than they were a couple of months ago.