Ayed Abu Eqtaish, director of the Seyaj Organisation for Child Protection, discusses “unchilding,” a term coined by criminologist Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian in 2019 and later used by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese to describe Israel’s systematic deprivation of Palestinian children’s right to life.
Abu Eqtaish describes it as depriving Palestinian children of childhood itself, leaving them worried daily about reaching school safely, whether family members will be arrested, or whether they will be shot by Israeli forces. Children can be delayed four or five hours getting home due to checkpoints and gates, often separated from family during closures.
He says resources for psychological support remain far too limited given the scale of need, particularly for children released from Israeli prisons, who one psychologist said used to need help “stepping on the ground” but now need to be “extracted from beneath the ground” due to worsening treatment in detention.
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