Turkish rights group calls on the international community to ensure the release of 16-year-old Fawzi al-Juneidi, a Palestinian child arrested by Israel
The Turkish Human Rights and Justice Movement (IHAK) demanded the urgent release of Fawzi al-Juneidi, a 16-‐year-‐old boy attacked, blindfolded and then imprisoned by Israeli troops last week.
Recent days have seen Israeli forces ratcheting up its use of force against Palestinians in the Palestine city of Jerusalem and other cities. On Dec. 7 2017, a group of fully armed Israeli military units in the city of Al-Khalīl attacked al-Juneidi, who happened to be passing by the street, and started beating him.
Fawzi al-Juneidi, merely a child who was cruelly bludgeoned by a large number of Israeli soldiers, was repeatedly beaten into the ground and stomped on, following which he was blindfolded and taken first to a military post and then to the Ofer Prison in Israel.
Press agencies took pictures of this monstrosity and shared them with the international community.
Fawzi al-Juneidi is just 16 years old, the eldest in a family of seven children. His mother a cancer patient with no hopes of treatment and father a bed-‐ridden patient, Fawzi tries to look after his family doing manual jobs at the expense of his school education.
Israel systematically detains and arrests Palestinian children in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israeli arrests in numbers:
In 2015, a total of 2634 Palestinian children were arrested, of which 22 were girls. In 2016, a total of 887 Palestinian children were arrested, of which 32 were girls. In 2017, 700 Palestinian children have been arrested so far.
The arrested Palestinian children are tried in military courts in Israel. Palestinian children detained and arrested by Israel are subjected to various forms of torture and cruel treatment, such as blindfolding and physical violence in the form of handcuffing, beating, starving, swearing and insults, threatening them with their mothers being hurt, harassment, being forced to sign paperwork in Hebrew, and psychological pressure.
IHAK calls on all countries party to the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of the Children, as well as all international organizations and all state and civil human rights organizations, child rights organizations and everyone with a conscience to support our cause to ensure the release of Fawzi al-Juneidi and every other Palestinian child arrested by Israel.
