The International Commission calls on the international community to respect the rights of the Palestinian child.
Ref: 109/2019
Date: 20 Nov 2019
Press Release,
On the occasion of World Children’s Day
The International Commission calls on the international community to respect the rights of the Palestinian child.
Wednesday, 20 November 2019 marks World Children’s Day and the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations on this day of 1989 and entered into force on 2 September 1990.
Here we witness this occasion again and the Palestinian children continue to pay high prices as a result of the Israeli occupation forces continued practices and policies against them, the children are still victims of Israeli crimes that have transformed their lives into a continuous and varied suffering.
The Israeli occupation forces deliberately kill Palestinian children as a result of a racist belief that killing children today is a killing of future enemy, where during the current year, the Israeli occupation forces deliberately killed children participating in the return marches in the Gaza Strip, and last week, they killed eight children, including five from one family, in the military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian children are still paying the price of the ongoing Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. According to medical studies and research, 75% of the nine-month-old Palestinian children are malnourished and anemic because their families are unemployed due to the siege. In addition, one-third of the victims who suffer from the denial of their right to travel abroad for medical treatment are children, and the percentage of children suffering from severe psychological trauma is high due to the current conditions in the Gaza Strip and the repeated Israeli military operations.
ICSPR considers that Israel’s policies and actions against Palestinian children constitute a clear break from the international obligations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the special protection rules of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Therefore, it demands the following:
- ICSPR calls on the international community to immediately put pressure on the Israeli occupation forces to force them to respect human rights and abide by the principles of international humanitarian law and to end the ongoing Israeli violations against Palestinian civilians and lift the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.
- ICSPR urges the Palestinian government to take the necessary measures to ensure the fulfillment of its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to address all violations of the rights of the Palestinian child.
