During international armed conflicts, including occupations by military
forces, children are afforded protection under International Humanitarian
Law. Children are also granted protection under the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), as persons who are especially
vulnerable during war time. However, the State of Israel has consistently
failed in its legal obligation to offer protection towards the children of
the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Since the beginning of the Second
Intifada in September 2000, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have killed
more than 860 children in the OPT, the majority of them in the Gaza Strip.
In response to these IOF killings of children, and IOF consistent use of
excessive lethal force against Palestinian children, the Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights (PCHR) is launching
‘Blood on Their Hands’ - a major investigative report on
child killings perpetrated by the IOF in the Gaza Strip.
Blood on Their Hands examines IOF killings of children in the Gaza
Strip from June 2007-June 2008. During this period, IOF killed sixty eight
children in the Gaza Strip.
The report provides data, analysis and testimonies on the killings of these
children, including detailed testimonies from eye-witnesses and bereaved
families, which highlight the horrific nature of these IOF child killings.
The report also examines the psychological impact of child deaths on other
children in the Gaza Strip, especially those children who have witnessed IOF
killings. Although it focuses on the Gaza Strip, the report also refers to
child killings by IOF in the West Bank, where twelve children were killed by
IOF during the reporting period.
The violent deaths of all these eighty children are the direct result of IOF
policy of targeting unarmed civilians in the OPT, and especially the Gaza
Strip, as a form of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians. The
report investigates the context of child killings in the Gaza Strip,
providing detailed investigations into IOF use of disproportionate and
excessive lethal force in order to deliberately target children. The report
also exposes IOF methods of killing children, and the consistent failure of
the State of Israel to investigate IOF killings of Palestinian children in
the OPT, or to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Blood on Their Hands exposes the extent of IOF child killings, and
makes urgent recommendations for the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to
respect the human rights of all Palestinian children in the OPT, as well as
demanding that the international community intervenes immediately and
effectively in order to ensure that children’s human rights are respected
and upheld.
