The Palestinian Authority’s Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs (CPA) said, in a statement Sunday, that 93 Palestinian minors are currently incarcerated in the Israeli Ofer prison near Ramallah.
According to WAFA correspondence, it said while eight of them are serving prison sentence, the other 85 are detained on remand.

Since the beginning of this year, the report said, some 161 Palestinian minors under the age of 18 were brought to jail by the Israeli authorities, a rate of one minor every day. This includes 30 children under the age of 15 arrested in May alone.

Recently, a number of Palestinian minor prisoners arrested by Israel told the CPA they had experienced a surge of flagrant violations against them during and after detention by the Israeli authorities, including physical assault and strip searches.

Heba Masalha, an attorney with the Detainees and ex-Detainees Affairs Committee, who was allowed to visit minor prisoners in Israeli jails, gained the testimony of four minor prisoners, who indicated a relentless disregard of their basic human rights.

In the prisoners’ testimonies, the violations included physical assault, eye-folding, hand-cuffing, strip-searches, beating among others.

A previous report which was also published on January 19, also indicated that Palestinian minor prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails were routinely subjected to physical torture during their arrest and interrogation as well as in detention.
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With more than 200 minor prisoners currently incarcerated in Israeli jails, Israel is the only state to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts that lack basic standards of due process.
IMEMC