Child Detention: Palestinian Children in the Israeli detention System and the new Roadmap for Action on Children Deprived of Liberty 2025-2030- Side event to the UN Human Rights Council 59th session
20 August 2025, Geneva, Switzerland
On 4 July 2025, Defence for Children International (DCI) hosted a side event on “Child Detention: Palestinian Children in the Israeli detention System and the new Roadmap for Action on Children Deprived of Liberty 2025-2030” which took place in the context of the UN Human Rights Council 59th session.
The event focused on the worrying situation that Palestinian children go through when facing Israeli justice system. Each year, between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are detained and prosecuted by the Israeli military court, that systematically lack the basic safeguards required for a fair trial. For the moment of arrest, these children are exposed to widespread and institutionalised ill-treatment, torture, including physical violence, blindfolding, sleep deprivation and prolonged isolation. Israeli authorities routinely deny fundamental protection and guarantee of conceding the right to a fair trial, rendering nearly every instance of detention arbitrary in nature.
The event, moderated by Mr. Alex Kamarotos, Executive Director of DCI, was comprised of two panellists: Mr. Khaled Quzmar, General Director of DCI-Palestine and leading expert in child justice and great violations committed against children during armed conflict; and Ms. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, and known for her rigorous analysis of the legal and human rights dimensions of the occupation and her advocacy for accountability and protection of Palestinian rights and Palestinian Children.
Ms. Francesca Albanese stressed the importance of the international community to take a step back and look at the “togetherness of every violation” and to always refer to the groundbreaking Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice when talking about Palestine.
She further highlighted that looking at the symptoms instead of the cause of the problem is what allows the system to continue being broken. Palestinians have been targeted: there is an ongoing genocide, it means they cannot be seen, they cannot exist in their own territory. 700 children per year in the last 15 years have been detained. Ms. Albanese asks the hard questions “What are you doing, Member States?”.
Ms. Albanese stressed that “we need to keep talking about Palestine and create spaces in newspapers and universities to talk about Palestine, whilst engagement on Palestine is being denied.”
It is essential to end the dehumanisation of Palestinians, for one of the gravest forms of violence inflicted upon them is the denial of their right to speak, to grieve, and to call for help. Palestinian children themselves have voiced their most basic plea: to live free from fear, and free from the constant loss of their homes, their families, and their lives. Too many grow up asking not if they will die, but when. Confronted with this unbearable reality, Ms. Albanese has issued a clear call to action: every country along the Mediterranean must assume its responsibility and send urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“We have a default arrogance because of where we come from. We assume without listening, and this is the time to be listening to the Palestinians”.
Mr. Khaled Quzmar underscored that the Israeli military court system is deliberately structured to punish Palestinians from the moment of arrest; children are blindfolded, handcuffed and transferred directly into military detention without due process or legal representation, in outright violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and international law, with more than 300 children now subjected to these practices. He further highlighted a fourfold surge in the administrative detention of children over the past year, noting that detainees spend four to six months confined without charges, evidence or visits from family or counsel, suffering severe psychological trauma reminiscent of British-mandate–era policies. Child administrative detainees now represent 37% of all Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military. At this time last year, that number was 15%.
Finally, he urged the international community to implement the 2025–2030 Roadmap for Action and the UN Global Study’s recommendations, providing sustained legal, psychosocial and advocacy support to Palestinian children and organisations such as DCI-Palestine, and to apply diplomatic and financial pressure to end the impunity that fuels child detention.
Following the concrete and extreme example of Palestinian children in detention in the Israeli military detention system, Mr. Alex Kamarotos presented the key elements of the new Roadmap that shows how all Member States can implement alternatives to deprivation of liberty and promote non-custodial measures for children.
Building on the momentum and lessons learned from the 2023–2024 Roadmap for Action, a new Roadmap for Action on Children Deprived of Liberty (2025–2030) marks a pivotal new chapter in the global movement to end the deprivation of liberty for children and seeks to translate the findings of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty into concrete, transformative action at national, regional, and global levels.
Some of the main recommendations included on the Roadmap are the following: prioritising right-based, cost-effective and non-custodial measures; strengthen legal safeguards and monitor systems to ensure accountability and transparency; invest in prevention, diversion, reintegration and restorative justice instead of the punitive one; ensure child participation, whose voices are important to be listened to. By launching the Roadmap today, DCI affirms its collective responsibility to move beyond punishment systems to embrace humaine, child-centred alternatives.
Mr. Alex Kamarotos concluded by quoting the words of Nelson Mandela: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”. The time is now and let us commit to making liberty, dignity, justice for every child, everywhere.
Watch the recording of the side event here:
Read the 2025-2030 Roadmap for Action on children deprived of liberty here.
Find more information about DCI-Palestine’s work here: DCI-Palestine