Have Palestinian children forfeited their rights?

22 March 2004
Journal of Comparative Family Studies

By M. Siraj Sait

I am the Palestinian David child wielding a single stone
Against the Israeli Goliath.
I am not afraid,
For truth is with me and God is on my side.
If I die,
A choir of angels will honor me And later, my parents will grasp my outstretched hand
And join me in Heaven.

          Preliminary discussions with the UNICEF programme officers in 
      the region revealed that the underlying issues which inform their 
      programmes are set from headquarters and are based on Western 
      assumptions of appropriate child development rather than an 
      understanding of the cultural, social, political and economic 
      context in which these phenomenon occur. The regional offices make 
      efforts to modify their programmes to fit local contexts. These 
      alterations, however, are not based on any empirical study. They 
      are, rather, an ad hoc assessment by local practitioners of what 
      might fit the community (Chatty and Hundt, 2001:8) 

Michael Freeman (1998:434) is among those who argue that child rights cannot be applied without a contextual understanding of a particular social order and the ways in which childhood is used as a strategy to propound versions of social cohesion. He notes that childhood is not a natural phenomenon, rather it is a social construct (with its limits) and the meaning of childhood is essentially contested. Undoubtedly, there are risks involved in dealing with children in political conflicts based on Western based essentialist assumptions about childhood experiences and perceptions about their needs (Boyden, 1994; Burman, 1994; Dawes and Cairns, 1998). Social, historical, political, cultural and economic contexts help identify the diversity of children's responses and local resources build capacity in finding durable solutions.

Though "universal childhood" is a myth, Abdullahi An Nairn (1994) argues that normative consensus can be pragmatically achieved through procedural universality resulting from the dynamic interplay between changing folk models and international standards. Internal discourse and cross cultural dialogue can provide for minimum safeguards to protect the "best interests of the child" from the abuse of the cultural card. Sadly, child rights receive little attention within the Middle East and from outside. So little is known about the world of the Palestinian child beyond the headlines that conceptions about their conditions, interests and priorities--as well as the factors responsible for their propensity towards violence- are driven largely by Western assumptions and Arab compromises and contingencies.

DEMONIZING THE PALESTINIAN CHILD

"[The Palestinian children] are taught to hate, fight, kill and destroy" (Naveh, 2003). The Palestinian child is presented simply as a product of an alien process. Though both Palestinian and Israeli children are victims of the conflict, Israeli Jewish children are seen as proper innocent victims of terrorism in contrast to Palestinian children who are often perceived as dangerous props of irresponsible parents, a conniving Palestinian Authority and desperate militant groups. A rightwing think tank queries "How did these children come to be exposed to danger? Why are Palestinian children allowed to confront a military force? Why are they present among rioters, snipers, and terrorists? And how is the press always in the right place to photograph such acts of false heroism" (Prism Group, 2003).

The relationship between the increased political activities of Palestinian children and the child casualties through the IDF's military offensive is unclear. The level or type of engagement by Palestinian children cannot be generalized given the variables of age, maturity, peer group, extent of politicization, geographic location and often simply the sweep of IDF operations. Only a small and unknown percentage of children are involved in protests. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine concludes that "most of the children killed or injured by the IDF were not engaged in confrontational demonstrations, but were victims of shelling by tanks and helicopter gunships, while they were engaged in normal peaceful pursuits" (UN Special Rapporteur 2002:para 41). A recent Amnesty report (2002:para 41) addressing both Israeli and Palestinian children supports these findings:

While most Palestinian commentators hold the opinion that the IDF shoot at children with impunity, James Graff (1997:167) argues that the Israel does not have a deliberate policy of killing Palestinian children, though it is not greatly concerned about injuring them. The Israeli policy, as a settler and occupying force, is to subjugate the indigenous population and consequently adopts a hardline approach towards youth seen as inscrutable and dangerous. The IDF have not disclosed their current regulations on the use of firearms, particularly with respect to children (Veerman and Levine 2001:75), but Amnesty (2002) argues that "the fact that most children killed or injured were hit in the head or upper body shows that in their use of firearms against Palestinian children, the IDF have consistently breached international standards regulating the use of force and firearms".

       The overwhelming majority of Palestinian children have been 
       killed in the Occupied Territories when members of the IDF 
       responded to demonstrations and stone-throwing incidents with 
       excessive and disproportionate use of force, and as a result of 
       the IDFs reckless shooting, shelling and aerial bombardments of 
       residential areas. Palestinian children have also been killed as 
       bystanders during Israel's extrajudicial execution of targeted 
       activists, or were killed when their homes were demolished. 
       Others died because they were denied access to medical care by 
       the IDF. At least three Palestinian children have been killed by 
       armed Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. 

Children caught in the conflict "appear to be a powerful counter to the Israeli version of events", therefore Western media "often include the Israeli-induced spin ... portraying the victims as the aggressors ... most journalists and editors are so accustomed to the image of Palestinians as terrorists that they do not even question that stereotype" (Hanley, 2001:52). However, such images are reinforced by a farewell note from a fourteen year old aspirant to become a suicide bomber, YoussefZaqout, "O mother, please be happy with me. I ask you to pray to God to make my martyrdom a success. I am giving my soul for God and the homeland". (MacAskill, 2002). Recurring themes of young lives sacrificed for the family, God and homeland provoke suspicions about motivations and support structures for such deliberate savage and unchildlike acts.

The official Israeli position is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is responsible for "inciting children and educating them in hate, anti-Semitism and carrying out acts of violence and murder" (Naveh, 2003). Though the PA is not a "State", and its security capacity and authority has been decimated by the IDF, it still has the obligation to take all necessary measures possible to prevent children from becoming suicide bombers. However, methodical studies rebut the claim that the Palestinian school curriculum is incendiary. UNWRA, which runs the schools in West Bank and Gaza, emphasizes "non-violent conflict resolution and human rights". A George Washington University study of the Palestinian curriculum concludes that the PA "should be credited with removing racist and anti-Semitic material from the curriculum, not for maintaining it .... ThePalestinian books strive to create a strong sense of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim identity in students. The books do not treat Jewish history in any comprehensive manner, positively or negatively ... (however) the books do not encourage violence" (Brown, 2001).

Some news reports allege Palestinian militant groups indoctrinate, exploit and train children and adolescents through special camps. However, there is no evidence of the PA or even the Palestinian armed groups systematically recruiting children. In April 2002, the Palestinian militant organization Hamas banned the "children's sacrifices", and called upon teachers and religious leaders to spread the message of restraint among young Palestinians. It continues to support adult suicide bombers as the only military strategy against an overwhelmingly superior militarized occupier. However, lack of distinction between military objectives and civilian targets from Palestinian militants does incur child casualties on the Israeli side which, in turn, robs the Palestinians of moral outrage when their own children are victims, a strange moral equivalence at the expense of children on both sides. The militants' recourse to Islamic justifications is highly specious since children are to be kept out as combatants or in jihad and protected as civilians by Islamic principles (Elahi, 1988; Kuper, 1997:75). Islam has a developed child rights approach (Sait, 2000) and political references to jihad or martyrdom represent a cynical exploitation of religion.

The disoriented Palestinian family does not exert the commonly assumed influence over its children during the intifada. The graphic media coverage and the expressions of anger and hostility among Palestinian adults toward Israelis and Jews are, no doubt, being absorbed by children but this is not necessarily a conscious schooling of children. As with other independence movements, the family does becomes politicized as "a center of resistance" with "all members of the family participating, children as well as parents, men as well as women" (Fernea 1995:12). There is no doubt that Arab society, indeed the family, celebrates and values its children as any other. However, what is captured by the Israeli and Western media is the post-facto parental consolation or public response to their dead children as martyrs for God and homeland, which is not the same as encouragement for violence, before the violence.

Most families are said to be unaware of their child's deadly adventure until the public hears of it. Adolescents defy their family through their political ideology. Abu Aisheh, from al-Najah university at Nablus, who blew herself up at a military checkpoint, had extensive Socratic debates with her uncle on the rightness or wrongness of suicide bombing. "To each argument [the uncle] made against killing civilians and one's self, Abu Aisheh answered with questions: Aren't we being shot down like dogs? Do you feel like a human being when Israelis control your every move? Do you believe we have a future? If I am going to die at their hands anyway, why shouldn't I take some of them with me?" Abu Aisheh left a suicide note recalling the death of her cousin and Mohammed Durra, the young boy who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers while walking with his father in Gaza (Williams, 2002). Even the Isrealis officially acknowledge that these youth are capable of rationalizing their targets as suicide bombers (Levy, 2002).

Lack of empirical or academic studies on the phenomenon of child suicide bombers and violent protestors has led to the Western media commonly projecting the responses of Palestinian children as unnatural, irrational and even "evil". In so doing, they exhibit little understanding of either the numbers (the small percentage of those involved) or the Israeli repressive policies towards children which, instead of intimidating them, have mobilized participation of children at various levels. Children are not insulated from reaction to Israeli brutality, for example, of teenagers who apparently sought to attack Jewish settlers shot down and then pulped by Israeli tanks (Fisk, 2002). The posters of these "martyrs" are leading to a cult of violence. The recent phenomenon of Palestinians child suicide bombers turns out almost a self-fulfilling prophecy of Israeli depiction of Palestinian children as uncivilized outlaws.

THE TRAUMATISED PALESTINIAN CHILD

Motivation for violent protests among children "lies in the very roots of the conflict, in the predominant macro-social, economic and political issues defining their lives" (Cohen and Goodwin-Gill, 1994:23). The outlook for Palestinian children under Israeli occupation "is grim as children's rights continue to be violated ... their reality is poverty, poor education, inadequate healthcare, and fear for loved ones. The occupation, the tanks, the checkpoints and the Israeli soldiers have incarcerated their dreams" (Halileh, 2002). The UN Special Rapporteur (2002:para 42) reports that Palestinian children have turned "increasingly aggressive as a psychological consequence of the constant shelling, gunfire and presence of a hostile occupying army".

UNICEF (2002) records that:

        The psychological and social impact of this conflict on children 
        in the Middle East is incalculable. Traumatic events like the 
        death or injury of family and friends, house-to-house searches, 
        and the humiliating round-up and detention of fathers and 
        brothers is causing irreparable damage to children's confidence 
        in adults. Children come to accept violence as a good method for 
        resolving problems and all hopes for the future fade. 

Documenting medical and health patterns such as the drop in immunization levels, infant mortality levels, widespread diseases or increased anemia during the conflict may appear straightforward. However, there have been concerns about using Western pyschometric instruments to measure Arab children living under conditions of military occupation (Miller et al., 1999:371; Thabet and Vostanis, 1999). Researching troubled children in the conflict zone is often a logistical nightmare with Israeli blockades (Miller et al., 1999:369).

A series of general population epidemiological surveys have demonstrated significant emotional and behavioural problems among Palestinian children, particularly a high prevalence rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other related mental health problems (Punamaki and Suleiman 1990; Baker, 1990; Qouta and El Sarraj, 1992; Khamis, 1993; Elbedour et al, 1993; Gabrino and Kostelny, 1996). Thabet and Vostanis (1999) find that 72.8% of the Palestinian children exposed to war trauma have experienced PTSD. Another study finds that the most common types of trauma exposure for children of all ages were being 'tear gassed', 'house searched with damage', 'watching shooting, fighting or explosions' and 'seeing family members being arrested or humiliated'. Child respondents overwhelmingly identified the military activities of the IDF as being responsible for their trauma (Miller et al., 1999:372).

A typical narrative regarding a family living in what becomes an area of IDF operations is told this way.

      Um Mahmood (mother) said that when being exposed to the tear gas, 
      her nine-month-old child begins coughing and does not stop until 
      becoming unconscious. As soon as the confrontations begin, Bader, 
      (her) five-year-old child, begins yelling and crying for 
      continuous hours, even after the ceasing of these encounters. 
      Bader has lately refused to play and go anywhere. He does not 
      want to be away from (the mother); he keeps holding the edge of 
      (his mother's dress). During the night, Bader wakes up saying that 
      he has seen the soldiers entering from the windows, although their 
      house is located in the third floor. And when he wakes up in the 
      morning, Bader begins looking for his plastic gun and asks (the 
      mother) to fill it with bullets in order to kill the soldiers when 
      they come to our house. 

Once, when Bader heard his parents' discussion regarding doing shopping for the house, he shouted "No, don't use the money to buy such things, instead buy a gun for each one of us; we want to defend ourselves" (YMCA, 2000:1).

UNICEF reports that:

       Available data indicates the lives, behaviour, and attitudes of 
       Palestinian children have changed dramatically since the onset 
       of the current conflict. These include nightmares, bed-wetting, 
       insomnia, and irregular sleeping patterns. Fear is also 
       common--fear of darkness, fear of sleeping alone, leaving the 
       house, strangers, loud noises and sudden movements. Children find 
       it difficult to concentrate. Some are more anxious and irritable. 
       Children are experiencing psychosomatic symptoms, such as 
       headaches, stomach cramps and skin problems. And others are 
       withdrawing from friends and family, rebelling or becoming 
       aggressive themselves (UNICEF, 2001). 

While most children are conscious of their vulnerability and exhibit low self-esteem, others react more aggressively. Dr Eyad el-Sarraj. who heads the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, explains "To get rid of fear you engage it, to get rid of the fear of dying you engage death. These children are playing an exciting and addictive game with death, and addictive is just what it is" (Brittain, 2001). A Palestinian NGO, LAW notes that "it is not uncommon in the Palestinian territories to witness Palestinian children playing a game where they pretend they have been killed" (LAW, 2002).

El Sarraj regards the current phenomenon as directly related to the breakdown of parental authority in the face of Israeli excesses. Children play in the streets, pretending to be Arabs and Jews trying to kill each other. "The children have switched their identification from their father to the Israelis. They prefer to play the Jew in the game because he is the powerful one. They have seen how their own fathers have lost the symbol of power" (Brittain, 2001). Children are also responding to peer pressure to become a "hero", under the belief that if they do not throw stones they will be attacked or even be considered as Israeli collaborators (Cohen and Goodwin-Gill, 1994:40). In the scenario of despair, war does give "child participants a mission in life, order, hierarchy, physical fitness, a sense of importance, of being essential to both a particular goal and an abstract idea"--though there is no doubting its damage (Roger Rosenblatt c.f. Cohen and Goodwin-Gill, 1994:97). Political street activism, then, needs to be understood as arising out of "lack of alternative spaces which Palestinian youth may occupy" (Chatty and Hundt, 2001:4). The physical and mental abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli action is material to their responses, and unless that pattern of child rights violations is stopped, few Palestinian children can be weaned away from violent protests.

CHILD RIGHTS FOR THE PALESTINIAN CHILD

Israel recognizes the cost of the conflict for its own children living under the fear of attacks (Oman and Ziv, 1997; Seliktar, 1980). Its society generally gives considerable importance to its children, and there are attempts on the Arab side to exploit the Anne Frank icon to seek better Israeli understanding of the suffering of Palestinian children, thus, the prison diaries of a fifteen-year old, Saud Ghazal, tortured and held by the Israelis for two years on an accusation of assaulting a settler (Yusuf Agha, 2002), or the commentary of another fifteen-year old, Reem Saleh, as the Israelis moved into her house at the Jenin refugee camp (Giovanni, 2002) fill that need. However, given the child casualties on both sides, protection of Palestinian children is approached by the Israeli government through political discretion and military judgement rather than a set of binding legal obligations.

The scale of human rights violations by Israel has been brought out not just through NGO reports and UN resolutions but findings of mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights. These range from experts on arbitrary detention, disappearances, arbitrary executions, food, housing, human rights defenders to torture and violence against women. Israel has ratified all major international human rights instruments - on civil and political rights, on economic, social and cultural rights, on racial discrimination, on torture, on women and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). However, in May 1997, the UN Committee against Torture criticized Israel's interrogation techniques. The most significant report has come from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors the CRC, in October 2002 (after discussion of Israel's February 2002 State Report) which censured Israel for its treatment of Palestinian children on numerous fronts. Several other Israeli reports are due for consideration in the near future.

The CRC is the world's most widely accepted human rights agreement, which Israel ratified in 1991, without any reservations. The PA also signed it in 1995. It contains 54 articles that are to apply to every child within a State's jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind (Article 2). Among the guiding principles of the CRC are that the "best interests of the child" should be a primary consideration in all decisions and procedures related to the child (Article 3), children's rights to survival and development be prioritized (article 6), and guarantees of protection from all forms of violence, whatever the reason, and whoever the perpetrator.

Though Israel is obliged to extend to Palestinian children the same rights and protection as Israeli children (Halabi, 1991; Veerman and Gross, 1995), it has refused to discuss Palestinian children in the Occupied Territories in its report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Rejecting this and embarking on a whole range of issues concerning Palestinian children, this independent non-political committee of experts started by stating:

The Committee's conclusions are corroborated by the findings of the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, by Mr. John Dugard. A full treatment of issues dealt by the Committee, or the Rapporteur, is beyond the scope of this article. Consider the blocking of access to education and juvenile justice. "Some schools have been commandeered by the IDF for use as military outposts; others have been bombed; over a hundred have come under fire, both in the daytime when the schools are in session and at night. Children are afraid and unable to concentrate. It is impossible to assess the long-term psychological harm caused to children by these assaults on their schools, the killing and wounding of their friends and the growing poverty they experience at home. Many have simply lost their childhood" [UN Special Rapporteur 2002:44-45. See also Giacaman et al., 2003].

       Amidst continuing acts of terror on both sides, especially the 
       deliberate and indiscriminate targeting and killing of Israeli 
       civilians, including children, by Palestinian suicide bombers, 
       the Committee recognizes the climate of fear which persists and 
       (Israel's) right to live in peace and security. At the same time, 
       the Committee recognizes that the illegal occupation of 
       Palestinian territory, the bombing of civilian areas, 
       extrajudicial killings, the disproportionate use of force by the 
       Israeli Defence Forces, the demolition of homes, the destruction 
       of infrastructure, mobility restrictions and the daily 
       humiliation of Palestinians, continue to contribute to the cycle 
       of violence. 

Equally troubling is the Rapporteur's finding on Israeli juvenile justice regarding Palestinian children:

        About 1,000 children under the age of 18 have been arrested and 
        detained since September 2000 in connection with crimes relating 
        to the Palestinian uprising. Most over 90%--have been arrested 
        on suspicion of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Children 
        are tried in Israeli military courts. Interrogation in order to 
        secure a confession continues for several days and is 
        accompanied by beating, shaking, threats, sleep deprivation, 
        isolation, blindfolding and handcuffing. The Israeli Supreme 
        Court, in its 1999 decision outlawing physical methods of 
        interrogation, accepted that inhuman methods of interrogation 
        qualifying as torture might be employed in a case of 
        "necessity"--where it is imperative to obtain information 
        urgently about the "ticking bomb". This alleged exception to the 
        prohibition on torture is clearly inapplicable where the aim of 
        the interrogation is not to extract information about a ticking 
        bomb but about stone-throwing by children. (UN Special 
        Rapporteur 2002: 49-50) 

The international community watches disinterestedly or helplessly as Israel moves with impunity against Palestinian children as demonstrated by recent IDF operations, including the Jenin incident in which children were most affected. UNICEF, mandated by the UN General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights globally, has also been concerned about Palestinian children's rights. On one hand is the pattern of collective punishments and general measures--from house demolitions and closures to family separation--which have a disproportionate impact on children. At the same time, the lack of access of UN humanitarian agencies to affected Palestinian communities make it nearly impossible to deliver crucial aid to vulnerable communities suffering under curfews and military incursions' (UNICEF 2002).

Cohen and Goodwin-Gill (1994:60) point out the difficult in construing the legal status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The intifada does not qualify as 'hostilities' as that term is generally used in international humanitarian law, and children are not being recruited as such. The situation is governed by law, however, specifically the fourth Geneva Convention". Palestinian children are not child soldiers as such, and they have special and heightened protection as child civilians in armed conflict (Kuper, 1997). Moreover, a child rights perspective helps clarify that Israel cannot deny children their rights merely because some of them protest the Israeli occupation. Beyond prevention, protection and provision, the CRC also guarantees participation rights (Article 12), which set out the principle that children should be listened to on any matter which concerns them, and their views given due consideration in accordance with their age and maturity (Lucker-Babel, 1995:396-97).

In the case of the Palestinian children, there appears to be a conflict between their right to protection from violence and their right to self-expression through demonstrations. Veerman and Levine (2001:86), noting the need to clarify legal protection concepts in fluid situations, call for "a careful, calibrated international response which will result in the best possible equilibrium between these conflicting rights, while taking the basic security of all parties into account". However, Israel's refusal to apply international humanitarian law and basic human rights standards to Palestinian children challenges not only the effectiveness of international human rights regime, but makes a mockery of the project of universal application of child rights norms.

CONCLUSIONS

In contrast to the role of the children in the first intifada, which was credited with bringing about the Oslo peace process, the present escalation of violence with children in a deadly and tragic cast of characters does not appear to have resulted in rethinking the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. The hundreds of Palestinian children killed and thousands injured have not stopped the cycle of violence. It may instead have provoked "a macabre competition between Arab and Jew to claim the youngest victim of the revolt" (Goldenberg, 2001). This is a strange moral equivalence. Children are being used, not to argue for peace and justice, but to rationalize acts of oppression, state terrorism and terrorism that target or condone targeting of children. A human rights approach, however, demands that both parties distinguish their targets and spare children as required by international humanitarian law.

As the long tortuous journey using the "road map" begins, the lack of a child centered perspective leaves the Palestinian child traumatized, demonized and legally discounted. They are vulnerable, without protection, and easily provoked into a process that results in derogation of their inalienable rights. Like all other Palestinian rights, child rights too seem contingent on passivity and reform. What is demanded, then, of Palestinian society is a reconfiguration of the Palestinian family and childhood itself, even while the conflict rages and destabilizes families. To fail to acknowledge the reality of the pressures and limitations of Palestinian childhood is to refuse to comprehend and deal with the symptomatic deviancies.

The distress of Palestinian children--as victims, bystanders and participants--points to serious long-term effects on their psycho-social development. Surely, "if today's generation does not have the opportunity to grow up in an atmosphere of trust, tolerance and justice, there can be little hope for stability in the region" (UNICEF, 2002). Palestinian children have difficulties in envisaging a future based on rights. Only two of the 120 children interviewed in a recent study in the occupied territories said that they could imagine a Palestinian state in the next decade. Almost all the rest envisaged poverty and violence (Save the Children, 2002). These children desperately need hope, normalcy, and protection. Both the Israelis and Palestinians must not only take into consideration the "best interests" of all children but also talk to the Palestinian children, recognizing their legitimate status as participants, not outlaws. Respect for child participatory rights is the only way of communicating to children their responsibilities to prevent abuse of their rights.

There is no dearth of evidence regarding the magnitude or multiple levels of human rights violations of Palestinian children. In addition to the cries of Palestinian activists or credible NGOs there are now authoritative reports from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Special Rapporteur. Israel is morally obliged to widely distribute and debate these findings. This ability to convert the human rights discourse into effective child protection strategies would, however, depend on pressure that can be exerted on all sides, particularly Israel.

The question for not just Israel but the rest of the world, is whether Palestinian children are entitled to equal rights as Israeli children or their own children. Are they entitled to special protection as children living under occupation or discarded because they do not subscribe to the oppression? It is the responsibility of both Israeli and Palestinian adults to denounce violence and move toward peaceful solutions that offer real hope to their children and to future generations. It is easy to dismiss child rights as a bunch of ideas without the prospect of enforcement. However, if the world's most widely ratified international instrument cannot come up with a strategy to protect the Palestinian children, it will no doubt make a mockery of the legitimacy of the child rights regime itself.

* Senior Lecturer in Law and Human Rights, University of East London, Duncan House, High Street Stratford, London E15 2JB United Kingdom

(1) Palestinian children are dispersed throughout the world, particularly in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) run refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic. (Using a refugee law framework for Palestinians is also problematic see Sait 2002)The status and treatment of Palestinian children within the pre- 1967 borders of the State of Israel is also controversial but this article focuses on the Palestinian children in the Israeli occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza. As per the article 1 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is someone under the age of 18.

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M. SIRAJ SAIT *