Ramallah: Palestinian children who are placed under house arrest by Israeli occupation forces suffer psychological trauma as they begin to view their parents as their jailers.
Al Meethaq for Human Rights says that many Palestinian children prefer to be in Israeli prison rather than house arrest and that the Israeli practice creates division and tension within Palestinian households.
Palestinian children lose their sense of safety and comfort as their own homes become their prisons, the group said.
Children under house arrest have to be escorted to school by their parents and picked up accordingly, creating a sense of embarrassment for the child. Parents are slapped with heavy fines if there are any violations of the house arrest protocol.
The rights group says that children spend their time doing absolutely nothing. This week alone, the Israeli military court in Occupied Jerusalem sentenced 37 Palestinian children to house arrest in a single court sentencing session. The total number of children under 18 serving house arrest sentences in occupied East Jerusalem this year is 287.
