Israel is killing scores of Palestinian children, Defense for Children International-Palestine’s Miranda Cleland says.
The Israeli occupation forces have extended their genocidal campaign in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Using drone strikes, troops in armored vehicles and bulldozers, their regular raids since October 7, 2023, have escalated into extensive and deadly attacks. Between August 28 and September 6, Israel launched “Operation Summer Camps,” a major military invasion, in the northern West Bank. “We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road,” Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, told The New York Times.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 722 Palestinians, including at least 164 children, in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
In Jenin city, within the governorate, approximately 70 percent of the roads have been damaged or destroyed in the attacks, according to the city’s mayor, Nidal Obeidi. Electricity, internet and telephone lines were shut down. Water and sewage lines were cut, leaving about 80 percent of Jenin with no running water, including the main hospital.
“They are imposing conditions, materially and psychologically, that make people feel: Gaza is coming to you,” Shawan Jabarin, director of Al Haq, a human rights group based in the West Bank, reported to the Times. “There is a feeling among Palestinians across the West Bank that what is coming is very bad — that it will be a plan to kill and expel us.”
UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese warns that “Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion.” Likewise, European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell said, “Without action, the West Bank will become a new Gaza. And Gaza will become a new West Bank, as settlers’ movements are preparing new settlements.”
In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Miranda Cleland, advocacy officer for Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), explains how Israel’s vicious assault in the West Bank is increasingly targeting children. A Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah, DCIP is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for complicity in genocide and failure to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Marjorie Cohn: Defense for Children International-Palestine is the only Palestinian human rights organization specifically focused on children’s rights. What is their primary work?
Miranda Cleland: DCIP was founded in the early ‘90s to provide legal aid to Palestinian children arrested and prosecuted by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. Since then, we’ve grown to include human rights education for Palestinian children, documentation of child rights violations with a focus on fatalities and detention, and international advocacy to push for accountability and greater protections for Palestinian children across the occupied Palestinian territory — the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
On September 9, DCIP issued a report that examined the cases of 141 children killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023, and July 31, 2024. How did that number compare with the killing of children there before October 7?
I’m one of the authors of our new report, “Targeting Childhood.” We found that 20 percent of all Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the year 2000 were killed after October 7. Israeli forces have seriously escalated their efforts to kill Palestinian children, from Gaza to the West Bank, and the data backs this up.
Were these children killed by accident, or were they specifically targeted? Were some of them killed while protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza?
Ninety percent of Palestinian children killed with live ammunition fired by Israeli forces or settlers were shot in the head, torso, or in multiple areas, according to the data in our report. Shooting a child in the head or torso demonstrates a clear intent to kill. Many of these children were shot by Israeli snipers from great distances — in some cases 1,000 feet away — which also indicates they were targeted.
We documented 10 cases where Palestinian children were shot and killed by Israeli forces in October 2023, during demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Four of these children were shot with expanding bullets, which expand inside the body upon impact and cause massive internal bleeding. The use of expanding bullets is a war crime.
What happened to their bodies after they died? Did the Israeli forces allow medical aid to reach the injured children?
In 43 percent of cases documented in the report, Israeli forces deliberately prevented injured Palestinian children from receiving medical care by detaining and firing live ammunition toward ambulances, paramedics and civilians attempting to provide aid. In many cases, these were children who sustained gunshot wounds from Israeli soldiers to the head or chest, or sometimes multiple locations on their bodies. In some cases, Israeli drone-fired missiles struck a child, leaving them with burns and shrapnel wounds all over their body. Israeli forces fired at ambulances and paramedics, and even civilian bystanders who tried to run and offer help to the child. Israeli soldiers surrounded a wounded child just long enough to confirm they were dead. This is an act of incredible cruelty, to ensure that a child dies alone and in immense pain, bleeding out on the ground.
Israeli forces enter refugee camps and kill Palestinians, including children. They have targeted refugee camps in the past. How does the current campaign differ from prior incursions? Why do you think they target refugee camps?
Israeli forces carry out incursions into Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, including refugee camps, on a daily basis. In recent incursions, Israeli forces have seriously escalated their efforts to not only kill and arrest Palestinians, including children, but also to damage and destroy civilian infrastructure like roads and power lines. They also besiege hospitals, like we witnessed in Jenin. And it’s not just Israeli ground forces carrying out these incursions; they are accompanied by military bulldozers, tanks and heavily armored military vehicles, in addition to drones and Apache attack helicopters.
Do Israeli forces use U.S.-provided weapons in the killing of Palestinians and destruction of infrastructure in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?
The United States provides $3.8 billion in military assistance to Israel every year, and since October 7, it has provided tens of millions more in funding as well as weapons. The U.S. places virtually no restrictions on how this funding and these weapons are used, so they are certainly used in the Israeli military’s campaign to target and kill Palestinian children.
What role do Israeli settlers play in the violence against children? Do Israeli forces restrain or enable settler violence?
Israeli settlers have been emboldened by the current right-wing Israeli government, and there have been more and more cases of Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank since October 7. In two cases of Palestinian child fatalities cited in our report, we could not determine who shot the bullet that killed the child, since Israeli soldiers and settlers were firing toward the child simultaneously. Of course, this is a difference without a distinction. In some cases, Israeli soldiers stand by and watch as Israeli settlers attack Palestinians; in other cases, they attack alongside one another.
Does Israel’s escalation of violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, correspond to the increased construction of illegal Jewish settlements there?
Absolutely — in many parts of the occupied West Bank, illegal Israeli settlements surround Palestinian villages and communities and encroach on Palestinian land, leading to Israeli settler attacks in these Palestinian communities.
How does targeting children violate international law?
Targeting children with live ammunition is first and foremost a violation of their basic right to life as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified along with nearly every other country in the world. It is also a violation of international humanitarian law as well as international criminal law.
Israel has an obligation as the “Occupying Power” under international humanitarian law to protect the Palestinian population living under Israeli military occupation. Yet Israeli forces overwhelmingly fail to intervene to stop or prevent settler attacks and instead protect the settlers, empowering them to perpetuate violent attacks against the Palestinian civilian population in the occupied West Bank.
Has there been legal accountability for those responsible for the deaths of these children?
No. Israeli authorities, which are able to hold Israeli military officials and soldiers responsible, are clearly unwilling to hold perpetrators accountable, which is why we believe the international community must intervene and enact an arms embargo as well as sanctions to force accountability.
What evidence would you cite that Israel maintains an apartheid system in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem?
The Israeli military legal system is applied only to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. This means that Palestinians, including children, who are arrested by the Israeli military are prosecuted in the Israeli military court system, where the judge and prosecutor are soldiers and the conviction rate is upwards of 95 percent. Israeli settlers living in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank never come into contact with the military legal system and instead are subject to the Israeli civil legal system. That’s what apartheid is: Different legal systems and statuses applied to different populations based on ethnicity in the same territory.
Do you think Israel is extending its nearly yearlong genocidal campaign in Gaza into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem?
Absolutely. As with Gaza, the Israeli government and military has made very clear its intentions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land until there is no Palestinian life to speak of.
What actions does DCIP demand that the international community take to prevent additional violence against children and to hold those responsible accountable?
In our report, we list three demands for the international community, which includes many countries and actors that have either watched, or turned away entirely, as Israeli forces have slaughtered Palestinian children at an unprecedented rate from Gaza to the occupied West Bank:
- Enact an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo alongside diplomatic and financial pressure to pressure Israeli authorities and forces to end the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli apartheid regime and the Israeli military occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory.
- Investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity and support investigations by the International Criminal Court, in order to hold perpetrators accountable.
- Use all available means, including those listed above, to demand that Israeli authorities uphold Palestinian children’s rights as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified.
On September 18, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution intiated by the State of Palestine, demanding an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in accordance with international law, as recently established by the International Court of Justice. The resolution calls for sanctioning Israel and forbidding member states from conducting business with Israel or promoting the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.
This article was first published on Truthout.
