RAMALLAH
Palestinian activists staged a protest on Tuesday in the West Bank to demand the release of 14-year-old Malak al-Khatib and all other Palestinian minors imprisoned by Israel.
Protesters gathered outside the Red Cross headquarters near Ramallah for a demonstration organized by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other Palestinian factions.
Protesters, including prisoners' relatives and women's rights activists, held posters aloft of al-Khatib, who was sentenced to two months in prison in January for possessing a knife and throwing stones at Israeli troops in the West Bank.
"Israel's detention of Malak is a shame on the occupation, which considers itself above the law," Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s committee on detainees, told the Anadolu Agency at the protest.
"Israel violates international law by detaining children and subjecting them to military trials and forced confessions with no regard to children's rights," he said.
On Jan. 21, al-Khatib became the youngest of 280 children being held in Israeli jails after an Israeli court sentenced her to two months behind bars and fined her 6,000 Israeli shekels (roughly $1,500), according to the Ramallah-based Ahrar Center for Prisoners' Studies and Human Rights.
The 14-year-old was detained by Israeli forces on Dec. 31 of last year while on her way back home from school in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Israeli forces routinely carry out arrest campaigns against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on the pretext that they are "wanted" by the Israeli authorities.
Over 7,000 Palestinians are currently languishing in prisons throughout Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs.
