In the shadow of Corona ... an international call for the immediate release of Palestinian captured children

Senior UN officials have expressed "grave concern" about Israel's continued detention of Palestinian children, and have called for their immediate release.

In a joint press statement, Jimmy McGoldrick (Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory), Geneva Putin (UNICEF Special Representative for the State of Palestine) and James Henan (Head of the United Nations Office for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory) noted that last March alone witnessed the arrest of 194 Palestinian children.

According to the statement, this was the highest monthly average number of children detained, compared to data for 2019.

The vast majority of these children have not been convicted of any crime - as the statement emphasizes - but they are being held on trial.

UN officials urged "the preservation of children's rights to protection, safety and well-being at all times", noting that arresting or detaining a child must be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, according to what is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child that both Tel Aviv and the State of Palestine have ratified.

The UN statement cautioned that, during the epidemic, countries should pay increasing attention to the needs of protecting children and their rights, and that the interests of children should be a first priority in all actions taken by governments.

Detained children are at increased risk of developing COFED-19 - says the statement - as physical spacing and other preventive measures are often absent or difficult to achieve.

The statement said that since the beginning of the Corona crisis in Israel, legal procedures are suspended, and almost all prison visits are canceled, and children are denied access to their families and lawyers personally "This adds psychological hardship and suffering and prevents the child from receiving the legal advice that he is entitled to."

He concluded that the best way to uphold the rights of children detained in a serious pandemic, in any country, is to release those who have been arrested, and to ban newcomers from entering detention centers. "We call on the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to do this immediately."