A/HRC/16/72 there is tension resulting from settlers’ taking control of houses and archeological sites.66 Some of those arrested were under the age of 12. An increasing number of testimonies by children and their families pointed to gross violations of the rights of children during interrogation.67 In the Ariel settlement in the occupied West Bank, children reported that they had been given electric shocks by Israeli interrogators in the settlement.68 The children, one as young as 14 years of age, were each accused of throwing stones at a settler bypass road in the occupied West Bank. Following the electric shocks, the boys provided their interrogators with confessions, although they maintained their innocence.69 In May 2010, a 14-year-old boy reported that his interrogator in the Israeli settlement block of Gush Etzion, in the occupied West Bank, attached car battery jump leads to the boy’s genitals and threatened to electrify the cable. After further abuse, the boy confessed to throwing stones, although he maintains his innocence.70 30. Each year, approximately 700 Palestinian children (under 18) from the West Bank are prosecuted in Israeli military courts after being arrested, interrogated and detained by the Israeli army.71 Observers have been shocked by the disparities between the special regard for children imposed by international legal norms and the actual practices of Israeli military and security forces. A recent visit by a British Parliamentary group is illustrative: Sandra Osborne, after visiting a military court used to prosecute children at Camp Ofer, near Ramallah, remarked during a Parliamentary debate on the subject, “it was a visit to a military court that shocked us to the core”.72 Among the shocking features were the following: the child defendants – 13 and 14 years of age – were brought into the courtroom with their legs shackled in changes and handcuffed, usually behind their backs; their jail sentences were lengthened by as much as three times unless they pleaded guilty; the judge had no interaction with the child defendants and was reported never even to look at them; proceedings and signed confessions were in Hebrew, a language most of these children did not know.73 The scene being described resembles the administration of justice in the South Africa of apartheid that the Special Rapporteur visited on a formal mission on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists in 1968. 31. The apartheid dimension of this abusive atmosphere is also accentuated by the dual legal system that is operative in the occupied territories, with settler children – who are rarely apprehended in any event for their violent act – being prosecuted in Israeli civilian courts, while Palestinian children are brought before the military court system. Among the discriminatory features of the two systems is the imposition of higher degrees of accountability at lower ages, Palestinians being held responsible as adults at the age of 16, while the Israeli age is 18. The failure to uphold minimum standards in relation to the treatment of Palestinian children detained and imprisoned is an extreme violation of Israeli 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 16 See generally B’Tselem, “Caution: Children Ahead - The Illegal Behavior of the Police toward Minors in Silwan Suspected of Stone Throwing”, December 2010. See also, Wadi Hilweh Information Center, “Silwanian Children at the Frontline”, 12 May 2010. Available from http://silwanic.net/?p=2966. See, “Child protection laws broken during Silwan interrogations”, The Jerusalem Post, 25 November 2010. DCI-Palestine, “Detention Bulletin, September 2010”. Ibid. Ibid. DCI-Palestine and PCATI have submitted complaints against the Israeli army and police interrogators and demanded an investigation into reports that an Israeli interrogator in the settlement of Gush Etzion attached car battery jump lead to the genitals of a 14-year-old boy in order to obtain a confession to stone throwing. “Submission to European Parliament Sub-Committee on Human Rights”. Haaretz, “Otherwise Occupied/Labour is concerned”, 13 December 2010. Ibid.