The Israeli occupation forces detained 450 Palestinian children since the start of the year, including 353 from occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Commission of Prisoners Affairs' statement published this week.
The statement read that Israel is still holding 170 minors in its prisons in addition to dozens of others minors who were arrested and sentenced.
"In the meantime, Palestine, Wednesday, expressed dismay at efforts to undermine the Human Rights Council (HRC) and its Independent Commission of Inquiry on the occupied territories, today," said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates in a statement.
“The State of Palestine is dismayed by the ongoing efforts of selected actors to undermine the Human Rights Council and its Independent Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and on Israel,” it said.
“Such efforts undermine the Palestinian people's fundamental right to justice and undercut the Council's own values.”
The statement added: “There is only one set of rules that apply to all, without exception. Our multilateral system cannot and must not tolerate the kind of arrogance, double standards, hypocrisy, or exceptionalism that some actors are displaying. States cannot call themselves champions of human rights and celebrate their return to multilateralism if they are actively seeking to exclude the Palestinian people from that system and the avenues to justice it provides. The multilateral system is not the property of one or two actors; it is by all of us and for all of us.”
It went on to say: “The Palestinian people are not the exception to the rules-based order. On the contrary, the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom and justice remain a pivotal test of the efficacy of the multilateral system and its principles.”
The Foreign Ministry, while defending the work of the independent commission, accused Israel of obstructing the work of the HRC and its independent commission of inquiry.
“Israel's politicization maneuvers obstruct the work of the Human Rights Council as an independent human rights body. Unlike inimical statements peddled by few actors, the Commission of Inquiry is the product of multilateral consultation and the consolidation of years and thorough investigations into and reporting on Israel's grave violations by United Nations experts, Human Rights Treaty bodies, and international organizations, whose work remain at the core of the Human Rights Council,” said the Foreign Ministry.
It urged the international community to immediately end Israel’s occupation and stop shielding or rewarding the occupation.
“The Commission was clear: Israel's illegal occupation is the underlying root cause of the ongoing violence. Rather than entertain attempts at shielding the occupier and rewarding it with more impunity, the State of Palestine urges the international community to immediately end Israel's illegal occupation and dismantle its apartheid regime,” the Ministry concluded its statement.
Two days ago, Israeli occupation forces detained 15 Palestinians from various parts of the occupied territories, according to local and Palestinian security sources.
They said that Israeli forces detained a Palestinian in a predawn raid into Ramallah city.
In the southern West Bank, Israeli soldiers detained a 15-year-old teen in Tuqu town, east of Bethlehem, after raiding his family home.
They also detained a prisoner’s wife after breaking into her family house in Bethlehem city.
Elsewhere in the southern West Bank, the sources confirmed a raid in Surif town, north of Hebron, resulting in the detention of another.
Israeli military vehicles stormed al-Tabaqa village, south of Dura, where the soldiers arrested a former prisoner.
In the northern West Bank, heavily-armed soldiers detained two people in the city of Nablus.
The soldiers violently dispersed local young men who protested the raid, triggering confrontations and injuring two by bullet shrapnel.
In Tulkarm district, the soldiers forcibly entered two houses in Faroun town, south of the northern West Bank city, conducted a thorough search, and detained two brothers.
In Jenin district, soldiers rounded up two others from Rummana village, west of the city, and ransacked the houses of their families.
They also stormed the family house of a former prisoner, conducted a thorough search, and threatened the family to storm the house again should the former prisoner not turn himself to the military.
The sources said that another was rounded up from Aqbat Jaber refugee camp, southwest of Jericho.
Meanwhile, Israeli police rounded up three others; one from the Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Isawiyya and two others after assaulting them from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, as reported by Wadi Hilweh Information Center.
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