A/HRC/16/72 standards of protection in situations of arrest or when enduring occupation. Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides: “The arrest or imprisonment of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”. Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifies that “Proper regard shall be paid to the special treatment due to minors”. Further, Article 77, paragraph 1, of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions reinforces this legal obligation as follows: “Children shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault. The Parties to the conflict shall provide them with the care and aid they require, whether because of age or for any other reason”. The treatment by Israeli authorities of Palestinian children living under occupation does not at all comply with these provisions. 27. The Rapporteur utterly deplores and strongly condemns the fact that, since 2000, 1,335 Palestinian children (including 6 children in 2010) have been killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.60 The arbitrary opening of fire by Israeli military against Palestinian children is particularly appalling. Since March 2010, Israeli soldiers along the border with Gaza have shot 17 children while they collected building gravel in the Gaza buffer zone to support their families. The children were shot whilst working between 50 and 800 metres from the border. Adults and children continue to do this dangerous work as Israeli authorities refuse to allow the entry of construction material into the Gaza Strip and there are few job opportunities available.61 28. The Rapporteur is further dismayed at the continual arrests and detention of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities. In 2010, Israeli authorities arrested children at checkpoints, off the street or, most commonly, from the family home. In the case of house arrests, large numbers of Israeli soldiers typically surrounded the family home in the middle of the night. Children were beaten or kicked at the time of arrest and put at the back of a military vehicle where they were subject to further physical and psychological abuse on the way to the interrogation and detention centre. Upon arrest, children and their families were seldom informed of the charges against them.62 Children were often subject to abuse during interrogation.63 At the end of October 2010, 256 children remained in Israeli detention, including 34 between the ages of 12–15 years.64 As of August 2010, 42.5 per cent of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons were not held in facilities separate from adults.65 29. The continued reports of inhumane and degrading treatment, including sexual assault, of children in detention is further deplorable. In Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, at least 81 minors from Silwan have been arrested or detained for questioning (mostly in the middle of the night), the vast majority on suspicion of stone-throwing following confrontations between Palestinians and settlers in the neighbourhood, where 60 61 62 63 64 65 See Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI-Palestine), “Detention Bulletin: November 2010”. Ibid. DCI-Palestine, “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights: Hearing on Situation in Prisons in Israel and Palestine”, 25 October 2010. Available from www.dcipal.org/english/doc/press/Prison_Conditions_EU_Parliament_25_Oct_2010.pdf. Ibid. DCI-Palestine, “Detention Bulletin: October 2010”. “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights” (citing figures provided by the Israeli Prison Service). See also B’Tselem and Hamoked, “Kept in the Dark: Treatment of Palestinian Detainees in the Petah Tikva Interrogation Facility of the Israel Security Agency”, October 2010, p. 33. 15