Prisoners’ Authority: The “Megiddo” administration assassinates the childhood of minor prisoners

Ramallah - Ma'an - The Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs Authority said, "The Megiddo prison administration is working to assassinate the childhood of minor prisoners, as the prison administration is singling them out, and practicing hateful punitive and retaliatory policies against them, based on beatings, torture, and daily abuse." The young prisoners conveyed to the commission's lawyers their difficult and complex reality, as they said, 'We are detained in Section 3, which is a special section for minor prisoners. Today we number 120 children, the vast majority of whom are school students, and among us are 18 cubs from Gaza. We live in rooms with great overcrowding, so our number in the room ranges.' One of (9-14) children, we are suffering from the spread of 'scabies' disease, which has appeared extensively as a result of being deprived of bathing, taking possession of our clothes except the ones we are wearing, and not allowing us to own soap, shampoos, detergents, and sterilizers. The infection is i ncreasing daily, and we are deprived of medicines. And treatment and going to the clinic, knowing that there are cases among us in which the disease has reached advanced stages, and there is a real danger threatening our lives.' The children added: 'The symptoms of the disease appear on our bodies in a way that is disturbing both health and psychologically, and the vast majority of us cannot sleep, due to aches and pains, spontaneous and strong itching, and the spread of wounds and ulcers. The disease and its seriousness worsen with the rise in temperature, and the child who seeks treatment is beaten and insulted, and entered.' Wardens and room guards to conduct counts, or to assault children, are wearing condoms and hand gloves.' The Commission's lawyer explained that the child prisoners from Gaza are held in two separate rooms, and they are prohibited from communicating with the rest of the children, and the majority of them suffer injuries in different parts of their bodies, resulting from beatings and t orture at the moment of their arrest, knowing that their number was 34 children two months ago. At the age of eighteen, they were transferred to other prisons, and only 18 of them remained in Megiddo. The Commission expressed its concern for the lives of young prisoners in prison, calling on institutions and committees for child protection, locally and internationally, to strive seriously to stop these crimes against them, and to put an end to the occupation's prison administration's isolation of them. Source: Maan News Agency