I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4391 
To require the Secretary of State to certify that United States funds do 
not support military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of 
Palestinian children, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 14, 2017 
Ms. MCCOLLUM (for herself, Mr. POCAN, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. 
BLUMENAUER, Ms. PINGREE, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. CARSON of Indiana, Mr. 
GUTIE´RREZ, and Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
A BILL 
To require the Secretary of State to certify that United 
States funds do not support military detention, interroga-
tion, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children, and 
for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Promoting Human 
Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian 
Children Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Israel ratified the Convention on the Rights 
of the Child on October 3, 1991, which states— 
(A) in article 37(a), that ‘‘no child shall be 
subject to torture or other cruel, inhuman or 
degrading treatment or punishment’’; 
(B) in article 37(b), that the arrest, deten-
tion or imprisonment of a child ‘‘shall be used 
only as a measure of last resort and for the 
shortest appropriate period of time’’; 
(C) in article 37(c), that ‘‘every child de-
prived of liberty shall be treated with humanity 
and respect for the inherent dignity of the 
human person, and in a manner which takes 
into account the needs of persons of his or her 
age’’; and 
(D) in article 37(d), that ‘‘[e]very child de-
prived of his or her liberty shall have the right 
to prompt access to legal and other appropriate 
assistance, as well as the right to challenge the 
legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty 
before a court or other competent, independent 
and impartial authority, and to a prompt deci-
sion on any such action’’. 
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(2) In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, there 
are two separate legal systems, with Israeli military 
law imposed on Palestinians and Israeli civilian law 
applied to Israeli settlers. 
(3) The Israeli military detains around 500 to 
700 Palestinian children between the ages of 12 and 
17 each year and prosecutes them before a military 
court system that lacks basic and fundamental guar-
antees of due process in violation of international 
standards. 
(4) Approximately 2,700,000 Palestinians live 
in the West Bank, of which around 47 percent are 
children under the age of 18, who live under military 
occupation, the constant fear of arrest, detention, 
and violence by the Israeli military, and the threat 
of recruitment by armed groups. 
(5) Since 2000, an estimated 10,000 Pales-
tinian children have been detained by Israeli security 
forces in the West Bank and prosecuted in the 
Israeli military court system. 
(6) Children under the age of 12 cannot be 
prosecuted in Israeli military courts. However, 
Israeli military forces detain children under the age 
of 12 and question them, for several hours, before 
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releasing them to their families or to Palestinian au-
thorities. 
(7) Human Rights Watch documented, in a 
July 2015 report titled ‘‘Israel: Security Forces 
Abuse Palestinian Children’’, that such detentions 
also included the use of chokeholds, beatings, and 
coercive interrogation on children between the ages 
of 11 and 15 years. 
(8) The United Nations Children’s Fund 
(UNICEF) concluded, in a February 2013 report ti-
tled ‘‘Children in Israeli Military Detention’’, that 
the ‘‘ill-treatment of children who come in contact 
with the military detention system appears to be 
widespread, 
systematic 
and 
institutionalized 
throughout the process, from the moment of arrest 
until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction 
and sentencing’’. 
(9) The 2013 UNICEF report further deter-
mines that the Israeli system of military detention of 
Palestinian children profoundly deviates from inter-
national norms, stating that ‘‘in no other country 
are children systematically tried by juvenile military 
courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the 
necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their 
rights’’. 
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(10) UNICEF also released reports in October 
2013 and February 2015 noting that Israeli authori-
ties have, since March 2013, issued new military or-
ders and taken steps to reinforce existing military 
and police standard operating procedures relating to 
the detention of Palestinian children. However, the 
reports still found continued and persistent evidence 
of ill-treatment of Palestinian children detained by 
Israeli forces. 
(11) In 2013, the annual Country Report on 
Human Rights Practices for Israel and the Occupied 
Territories (‘‘Annual Report’’) published by the De-
partment of State noted that Israeli security services 
continued to abuse, and in some cases torture mi-
nors, frequently arrested on suspicion of stone- 
throwing, in order to coerce confessions. The torture 
tactics used included threats, intimidation, long-term 
handcuffing, beatings, and solitary confinement. 
(12) The 2013 Annual Report also stated that 
‘‘signed confessions by Palestinian minors, written in 
Hebrew, a language most could not read, continued 
to be used as evidence against them in Israeli mili-
tary courts’’. 
(13) The 2016 Annual Report noted a ‘‘signifi-
cant increase in detentions of minors’’ in 2016, and 
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that ‘‘Israeli authorities continued to use confessions 
signed by Palestinian minors, written in Hebrew.’’ It 
also highlighted the renewed use of ‘‘administrative 
detention’’ against Palestinians, including children, a 
practice in which a detainee may be held indefinitely, 
without charge or trial, by the order of a military 
commander or other government official. 
(14) The nongovernmental organization De-
fense for Children International Palestine collected 
affidavits from 429 West Bank children who were 
detained between 2012 and 2015, and concluded 
that— 
(A) three-quarters of the children endured 
physical violence following arrest; 
(B) under Israeli military law, children do 
not have the right to a lawyer during interroga-
tion; 
(C) 97 percent of the children did not have 
a parent present during their interrogation; 
(D) 84 percent of the children were not 
properly informed of their rights by Israeli po-
lice; 
(E) interrogators used stress positions, 
threats of violence, and isolation to coerce con-
fessions from detained children; and 
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(F) 66 children were held in pre-trial, pre- 
charge isolation for interrogation purposes for 
an average period of 13 days. 
(15) Amendments to Israeli military law con-
cerning the detention of Palestinian children have 
had little to no impact on the treatment of children 
during the first 24 to 48 hours after an arrest, when 
the majority of their ill-treatment occurs. 
(16) In 2002, the United Nations Committee 
on the Rights of the Child, which monitors imple-
mentation of the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child, reviewed Israel’s compliance with the Conven-
tion and expressed serious concern regarding ‘‘alle-
gations and complaints of inhuman or degrading 
practices and of torture and ill-treatment of Pales-
tinian children’’ during arrest, interrogation, and de-
tention. 
(17) In 2013, the Committee declared that Pal-
estinian children arrested by Israeli forces ‘‘continue 
to be systematically subject to degrading treatment, 
and often to acts of torture’’ and that Israel had 
‘‘fully disregarded’’ the previous recommendations of 
the Committee to comply with international law. 
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SEC. 3. PURPOSE. 
The purpose of this Act is to promote and protect 
the human rights of Palestinian children and to ensure 
that United States taxpayer funds shall not be used to 
support the military detention of Palestinian children. 
SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of Congress that the detention and 
prosecution of Palestinian children in a military court sys-
tem by the Government of Israel— 
(1) violates international law and internation-
ally recognized standards of human rights; 
(2) is contrary to the values of the American 
people and the efforts of the United States to sup-
port equality, human rights, and dignity for both 
Palestinians and Israelis; 
(3) undermines efforts by the United States to 
achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and 
the Palestinians; and 
(4) should be terminated and replaced with a 
juvenile justice system in which Israeli authorities do 
not discriminate between the treatment of Israeli 
and Palestinian children and that adheres to inter-
nationally recognized standards of human rights and 
obligations. 
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