DCI-Palestine documents, exposes and defends children against all forms of violence, whether physical or psychological. Ours is a comprehensive approach focusing on monitoring, advocacy, awareness-raising and legal services, the combined impact of which is to expose and mitigate the ongoing violence against children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Since June 1967, when Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following six days of armed conflict, children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have inhabited an environment characterised by violence and instability. Over 1,800 children have been killed as a result of occupation policies and practices since the year 2000.
Over 1,800 children killed across the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2000.
Violence against children takes many forms, encompassing physical violence such as injury from gunfire or crowd control weaponry, beatings and torture, or individual attacks. It includes psychological violence that arises from fear of arrest or physical harm, as well as the psychological interrogation techniques employed by the Israeli army. It includes discrimination and neglect perpetrated by the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
The ongoing Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank creates an environment in which children are routinely exposed to violence. Occupation policies and practices, such as the indiscriminate use of crowd control weapons, result in regular injury to children.
In Gaza, violence against children is perpetuated through the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has been in place since 2007, and regular Israeli military operations that result in high numbers of child fatalities.
Four children across the Occupied Palestinian Territory shot with live ammunition in the first two months of 2014 alone.
Violence against children also occurs within Palestinian society, either as a result of policies pursued by the Palestinian Authority, or actions by Palestinian armed groups. Between 2006 and 2012, DCI-Palestine documented 26 cases of children being recruited by armed Palestinian groups.
26 cases of armed Palestinian groups recruiting children between 2006 and 2012.
DCI-Palestine’s interventions help improve the lives of thousands of children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Click on the links below to find out more about the different forms of violence perpetrated against children, and what we’re doing to bring this violence to an end.
