NEW YORK: The world has “turned a blind eye” for “decades” to the plight of Palestinian children in Israel’s “notoriously brutal prison system,” Jordan’s Queen Rania said on Tuesday at a meeting attended by Arab News on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“They’re arbitrarily taken into custody, denied due process and held indefinitely,” she added. “Most parents can barely allow themselves to imagine it — their 12-year-old taken at gunpoint, driven away somewhere they can’t follow. It’s inconceivable. Yet it happens to Palestinian families all the time.”

The meeting was organized by Save the Children, which has extensively documented Israel’s detention practises, including physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

Every year, hundreds of children in the Occupied Territories are detained before being prosecuted in Israeli military courts.

The most common charge they face is stone throwing, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, according to Save the Children.

Conditions have deteriorated for the 9,350 Palestinian prisoners currently held, including 350 children.

“Children tell of a grim, familiar pattern — ripped from their homes in the middle of the night, not knowing where or why they’re being taken, brought alone, handcuffed and blindfolded to interrogation sites, held before military courts, pressured to sign documents they don’t understand, assaulted and threatened with rape, kept underfed, isolated and afraid,” Queen Rania said.

She referred to the death of Walid Khalid Ahmad, 17, in Megiddo Prison in March 2025 after six months of imprisonment over charges of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

He is the first minor to die in Israeli detention since the war on Gaza began in October 2023. His body is still in custody after an autopsy conducted by an Israeli pathologist revealed that he likely died from prolonged malnutrition in prison.

“So much of his experience was typical,” the queen said. “He was taken in a pre-dawn raid. He was held without charge. He requested medical assistance that never came. This routine cruelty isn’t the work of a few abusers.”

Israel is accused by various rights groups and the UN of committing torture in its prisons. Palestinian children engaged in political activism are subjected to the military court system, unlike Israeli children who are tried under civil law.

Queen Rania said Israel has normalized violence against children: “And I just don’t understand. What’s so terrifying about Palestinian children? Before they even come of age, Palestinians are cast as threats — demographic threats, security threats, presumed guilty for future crimes they haven’t committed.”

At least 66 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons since the outbreak of the Gaza war, among them 40 from the enclave.

Since the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, at least 303 Palestinian prisoners have died in custody, with 75 bodies still held by Israel.

The country passed a law in May legalizing the death penalty for Palestinians involved in deadly attacks against Israelis.