LETTER: Outrageous to call children terrorists

“Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military courts — between 500 and 700 each year. The Israel Prison Service revealed that an average of 204 Palestinian children have been held in custody every month since 2012.

“Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains ‘widespread, systematic, and institutionalised throughout the process’.”

These were the conclusions of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report ‘Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations’.

Palestinian children as young as 12 are routinely:

Taken from their homes at gunpoint in night-time raids by soldiers.

Blindfolded, bound and shackled.

Interrogated without a lawyer or relative being present and with no audio-visual recording.

Put into solitary confinement, and

Forced to sign confessions (often in Hebrew — a language they do not understand).

These children are protesters — to call them “terrorists” is outrageous.

Steve Hoyland, Clarendon Road, Eastwood