The Condition of Palestinian Women and Children in Israeli Jails

By
Silvia Nicolaou-Garcia
Researcher, Middle East Monitor, MEMO, London

Overview

• The treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons does not comply with international human rights or with international humanitarian law standards. This report examines how these international law violations are accentuated in the cases of detained women and children.
  
  
• Due to the fact that women and children are vulnerable subjects, they are often at risk of violence, abuse and denial of their rights at every stage of the criminal justice process.¹ The risks faced by Palestinian children in detention are having a damaging impact on their development and violate established principles of juvenile justice. In the same way, there is a complete disregard of gender sensitive health care and hygiene standards for Palestinian female detainees, sometimes resulting in pregnant women being shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth.²
  
  
• This report distinguishes between two types of violations: those occurring during the trial proceedings, including denial of fair trial and administrative detention, and those occurring during detention and in prisons, sometimes amounting to torture.
  
  
• Before addressing these substantive issues, the report reconsiders Israel’s obligations under international law, since an understanding of the latter has a bearing on the categorisation of the former.

By
Senussi Bsaikri
Researcher, Middle East Monitor, London




Background

The beginning of the 21st century witnessed the emergence of what has come to be known as the ‘Iranian Nuclear Crisis’. It followed the unearthing of Tehran’s nuclear aspirations when, in August 2002, an exiled Iranian opposition group named the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) revealed classified details about Iran’s nuclear program, including information about uranium enrichment and production of the chemical compound Arak heavy-water.

The sole benefit of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip has light-heartedly been said to be its containment of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus. Restrictions on movement in and out of this densely populated area as well as ever widening limitations on the import of much needed goods have meant that the virus has been kept at bay until now. Nevertheless, there has been growing fear that the emergence of just one case could trigger an epidemic when it inevitably finds its way in.

Saturday, 17 January 2009- DAY TWENTY TWO

IOF continued their offensive against the Gaza Strip for the 22nd consecutive day, attacking UNRWA shelters, as well as medical, civil defense and media crews; white phosphorous continued to be used against residential areas. In the northern Gaza Strip, an IOF warplanes bombarded a water well of the Municipality of Beit Hanoun in Abu Ghazala quarter in the east of Beit Hanoun, and the al-Karama apartment buildings and Taha Mosque in Jabalya.