Palestinian children are tortured and used as human shields by Israeli military and police forces, according to a report released on Thursday by a United Nations human rights watchdog.
The report, published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, an independent body of legal experts, said that Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza are “systematically” subjected to verbal and physical abuse, or threatened with death or sexual assault while in Israeli custody.
Detained Palestinian minors are coerced into signing confession forms in Hebrew, a language which most do not understand, the report stated.
The committee also accused Israeli soldiers of using “Palestinian children to enter potentially dangerous buildings ahead of them and to stand in front of military vehicles in order to stop the throwing of stones against those vehicles.”