Detention figures – According to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 30 November 2014, there were 5,527 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza) held as "security prisoners" in Israeli detention facilities including 156 children
. In the case of children this represents a decrease of 4 per cent compared with the previous month and an annual decrease of 4 per cent compared with 2013. According to the IPS, 48 per cent of Palestinian children and 90 per cent of adults continue to be detained in facilities inside Israel, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. A further 1,955 Palestinians were held in IPS detention as "criminal prisoners" including 30 children. Criminal offences include entering Israel without a permit, most frequently in pursuit of work. More statistics
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Testimony - On 1 December 2014, a 16-year-old youth is arrested by Israeli soldiers at 2:00 a.m. and accused of participating in a demonstration and throwing stones. “My father woke me and told me Israeli soldiers were in the house and they had come to arrest me. It was 2:00 a.m. I got up and went to the living room where the soldiers had gathered. The commander told me to get dressed. Before I was led out of the house a soldier asked my father to sign a document acknowledging that no damage had been done to the house. I was led to the centre of the village. Soldiers tied my hands to the front with one plastic tie which was very tight and painful. I was then put into the back of the jeep and made to sit on the metal floor, between the legs of the soldiers. I was also blindfolded.”
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Stone Cold Justice wins top award for investigative journalism - At the annual Australian
Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism held in Sydney on 4 December 2014, the joint Four Corners, ABC TV and The Australian documentary – Stone Cold Justice – won the best award for investigative journalism for 2014.
Reporter John Lyons travels to the West Bank to hear the story of children who claim they have been taken into custody, ruthlessly questioned and then allegedly forced to sign confessions before being taken to court for sentencing.The program focuses on the stories of three boys. In two cases the army came for the children in the middle of the night, before taking them to unknown locations where they are questioned. A mother of one of the boys described the scene. See film
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Military regulations for arresting minors in the West Bank – The regulations for arresting minors in the West Bank have been made publicly available following the submission of a Freedom of Information (FOI) application by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (
ACRI). The guidelines apply to both the Israeli military and police operating in the West Bank. A “debriefing paper for commanders and soldiers” was also produced in response to the FOI application which notes the “special sensitivity” involved in arresting minors and continues: “International bodies and various human rights groups have criticized sharply, time and again, the way in which minors are treated in the Judea and Samaria area [sic] - from the stage of arrest, through the interrogation and up to the trial.”
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Child detention raised in UK parliamentary debate - On 1 December 2014, the UK Parliament debated a motion on Palestine and the means to end the conflict. During the course of the debate the issue of the detention and prosecution of children in Israel’s military court system was raised. In this regard it was noted that according to a UNICEF report, Israel is the only country to systematically prosecute children in a military court system in which they are frequently subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. During the course of the debate it was also noted that the Israeli authorities apply different laws to children in the West Bank depending on whether they are Palestinian or Israeli settlers, with far reaching consequences concerning their respective rights and protections.
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Australian Government claims legal privilege to question on Geneva IV – The Abbott Government has made a claim of legal professional privilege in response to a question raised in the Senate regarding the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The decision to claim privilege rather than answering the question in an open and transparent manner is an apparent departure from the policy of successive Australian governments since the ratification of the Convention in 1958, and runs counter to the general international consensus and legally binding UN Resolutions concerning the application of the Convention. This apparent policy shift or ambiguity also falls short of Australia’s legal commitment “to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances” contained in Article 1.
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UK MPs seek further clarification from G4S - On 26 November 2014, the Chair of the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, Richard Burden MP, sought further clarification from G4S as to why the unlawful detention of Palestinians inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention was not specifically addressed in the “Independent Review” published on the Company’s website in June 2014. The correspondence notes that one of the authors of the “Independent Review”, Dr. Hugo Slim, received a briefing on this specific issue on 28 April 2014 and that an “adequate explanation for this apparent omission can only increase the weight and credibility of the review and ensure that your company’s objective to be fully transparent on this matter is met.”
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A soldier’s video testimony: Demonstration of presence - A former Israeli soldier provides a video testimony to
Breaking the Silence in which he describes how the army would “demonstrate presence” in the West Bank; a euphemism for “badgering Palestinians in the villages”. These are proactive missions in which Israeli military units enter Palestinian villages and make sure the residents know that the army is in the area. These missions sometimes include going into Palestinian villages at night and shooting flares and throwing stun grenades. During the day it might include stopping villagers and checking their ID cards as well as firing stun grenades.
Video testimony
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Switzerland hosts Conference of Parties to Geneva IV - Representatives of 126 High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention met in Geneva on 17 December 2014, to adopt by consensus a ten-point Declaration recalling applicable international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East-Jerusalem. The conference was hosted by Switzerland in its capacity as Depositary of the Geneva Conventions. The ten-point Declaration adopted by consensus by the Conference today reaffirms fundamental principles of international humanitarian law which all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War must respect. It emphasizes that these principles also apply to non-state actors.
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Haaretz: Israeli military drops charges against Palestinian youths - Military prosecutors have repealed charges filed against three Palestinian youths accused of throwing oil-filled bottles at buses on the highway, after it turned out they had been threatened by a police officer.The three, ages 15 and 17, are from the village of Beit Ummar. They were arrested on November 17 by army trackers after soldiers at an observation post supposedly spotted them throwing oil-filled bottles at Israeli buses traveling on Highway 60 in the West Bank. The three were taken to the Hebron police station, where they were interrogated in the middle of the night by investigator Asher Ben Lulu.
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Baroness Warsi and Baroness Morris visit the West Bank on Caabu / Medical Aid for Palestinians delegation - Baroness Warsi and Baroness Morris have recently returned from a Caabu/Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) delegation to the West Bank. They spent five days in Palestine, from 18 - 24 December. The delegation was accompanied by Joseph Willits from Caabu. This was Baroness Warsi's first visit to Palestine since resigning from the Government as a Foreign Minister over Gaza in August 2014. Baroness Morris is the President of Medical Aid for Palestinians. The delegation met with Palestinian and Israeli officials, including with prime minister Rami Hamdallah. Over the course of the delegation, Baroness Warsi and Baroness Morris had meetings with Ray Dolphin on UNOCHA in Jerusalem about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank and with Military Court Watch.
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