Poster of the Week

End The Occupation
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Offset, 2002
Washington DC
17406

The CSPG poster of the week shows a Palestinian child detained by Israeli forces. The poster was created in 2002 by American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), but is being featured because of the recent kidnappings and killings of both Israeli and Palestinian individuals, many of which have been teenage children.

On June 12th, 2014, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank as they hitchhiked to their homes. This act was followed by a ‘retaliation’ kidnapping and killing of a Palestinian teenager. Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces have now been in an open fire conflict that has left hundreds in Gaza killed and thousands injured.  The latest report released on July 15th from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that 197 Palestinians have been killed and 1,390 have been wounded.  Most recent statistics have increased the number of those killed to 210, with the first Israeli civilian death since the initial June kidnapping occurring July 15th.  Of those that have been killed or wounded, alarming amounts have been women and children.  According to Gaza health ministry figures, of 1,140 wounded, 296 are children and 233 are women.

Along with the current events that are unfolding in the Israeli-Palestinian region, what this poster attempts to call attention to is the criminalization of Palestinian children. Children and underage youths make up 47% of Palestine’s population. According to a report issued by the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization dedicated to exposing human rights violations, some 2,500 Palestinian children and youth have been detained from January 2010 and June 2014, 400 of whom are between the ages of 12-15. For more information on detained Palestinian children, see this accompanying infographic:
http://euromid.org/uploads/2014/infographic/From_Abduction_to_Prison.jpg

Link to UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/humanitarian_Snapshot_16July2014_oPt_V1%201.pdf

Link to report:
http://euromid.org/en/article/528/Report:-Israeli-Cruelty-to-Palestinian-Children--From-Abduction-to-Prison

Other sources:
http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_PCBS/Downloads/book1863.pdf