Shabana Mahmood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-01-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to Israel of the implications of its obligations under the Geneva Convention for the practice of forcible transportation of child prisoners from Palestine to Israeli jails.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
As I made clear on 6 January during a Westminster Hall debate, the UK remains concerned about the detention of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons.
On 23 November 2015, officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv raised our concerns about the treatment of Palestinian minors in Israeli military detention with the Israeli Chief Military Prosecutor. We welcome recent improvements made by the Israeli authorities, including increasing the age of majority from 16 to 18 years old. However, we remain concerned at the number of Palestinian minors held in Israeli detention. We will also fund another visit of the delegation who authored the independent report on Children in Military Custody in February to report on further progress.
We continue to push for further measures to ensure that international standards are upheld in regards to the treatment of Palestinian children detained.
