Statement of Senator Peter Welch 

On Prosecutions of Palestinian Children 

Congressional Record 

December 2, 2025 

Mr. President, for those of us who have long supported U.S. diplomatic leadership in pursuit of a secure, democratic Israel alongside a demilitarized, independent Palestinian state, the protection of due process and the rule of law has central importance. Equal access to justice is essential for lasting peace in the Middle East. Today I voice a concern shared by many of my colleagues: the incarceration, prosecution, and punishment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military justice system. 

As a former public defender and member of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, which has jurisdiction over human rights, I have a perspective on the way justice systems should treat children. To put it categorically, civilians, and especially children, should not be prosecuted in military courts. It’s analogous to how I feel about child soldiers—children should not be recruited or allowed to serve in the armed forces.   

The reasons should be obvious. Civilians are, by definition, noncombatants. Military justice systems lack independence and routinely fall short in providing the fundamental protections of due process and a fair trial that exist in the civilian justice system, and which are rooted in international law.  

Israel, however, automatically and systematically prosecutes Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in Israeli military courts under Israeli military law. These courts lack impartiality and transparency, as military court judges and military court prosecutors are active or reserve duty officers in the Israeli military and subject to the chain of command. 

To make the process even less credible, in the West Bank Israeli military law only applies to the Palestinian population, while Israeli citizens have the benefit of the protections of Israeli civil law and courts. This double standard is glaringly inconsistent with the principle of equal justice that is foundational to a democracy. 

According to numerous credible reports, Palestinian children are frequently arrested in their homes by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. They are bound, blindfolded, and often beaten in military vehicles during transport before arriving at an Israeli police station for interrogation, which is often located in an Israeli settlement. They are routinely interrogated alone without the presence of a family member or attorney and often threatened with physical violence if they don’t confess.   

Nearly half of the approximately 350 Palestinian children currently detained by Israel are in administrative detention. Most have not been formally charged or brought to trial. When they are charged in military courts, they are overwhelmingly accused of throwing rocks. Rarely are they accused of causing injury or significant property damage. Generally, there is no evidence-gathering process by Israeli authorities for children who are charged in the military courts, so the crux of the case is the child’s confession or a signature on a document in Hebrew they don’t understand. There can also be an affidavit from an arresting soldier or intelligence officer or an incriminating statement made against the child by another child who was also arrested and accused in connection with the same alleged incident.  

Only a small percentage of Palestinian children in the military courts are released on bail. Custodial pre-trial—and often pre-charge—detention is the norm. Almost all prosecutions of children in military courts are resolved with plea agreements, which are the fastest way for a Palestinian child to be released from detention. Entering a not guilty plea is rare, and contesting a charge in the military courts means legal proceedings can be long and drawn out. To put it bluntly, punishment, not justice, is the goal of the military courts. The system is stacked unfairly against the child defendant, whose family is not even allowed to be present during court hearings, so irrespective of the facts or the reliability of the confession, pleading guilty in return for the shortest time in jail—which can still mean weeks or months or even years—is the norm.  

I think of Mohammed Ibrahim, a Palestinian American who was detained for nearly ten months after being arrested at the age of 15 in his home at 3 o’clock in the morning by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. He described being bound and beaten while being transported and threatened while being interrogated without the presence of a family member or an attorney. U.S. Embassy officials who visited him most recently in November described obvious deterioration in his mental and physical condition.   

Mohammed’s case fits the pattern, except that he is an American citizen. Putting aside that his confession may have been coerced, even if everything he was accused of—throwing stones that caused no harm—were true, it is unconscionable that he was abused and detained for months. He was deprived of adequate food and reportedly lost a third of his body weight. Senator Van Hollen, I, and other Members of Congress repeatedly raised concerns about him, and thankfully, on Thanksgiving Day, he was released. It is now the Israeli government’s obligation to hold accountable the soldiers who beat him and the jailers who mistreated him.  

Israeli authorities have defended this inherently flawed and discriminatory system as a necessary response to an ongoing state of hostilities. There are at least three problems with that argument:  

First, these are children. Children do not belong in military detention or military courts, and the fact that they are caught in the middle of a decades-long conflict doesn’t change that.  A child does not become an armed combatant deserving of prosecution and punishment in the military justice system because of throwing a stone that causes no injury. Yet that is the reality for Palestinian children in the West Bank. 

Second, administrative detention compounded by physical and psychological abuse and humiliation of Palestinian detainees and the lack of due process that is endemic in the military justice system, have long-lasting impacts on a child. They have difficulty re-entering and continuing school, face increased restriction on freedom of movement, disruptions to family life, behavior and mental health issues, and it fuels resentment and hatred.  

And third, Israeli settlers routinely and increasingly engage in provocations, threats, and violence—sometime deadly violence—against Palestinians with impunity. These attacks and gratuitous destruction and theft of Palestinian property are often observed and tolerated by IDF soldiers. This too fuels hatred and more violence.  

Absent a legitimate claim of self-defense, violence is wrong no matter who engages in it. But the incarceration, prosecution, and punishment of Palestinian children by Israeli military prosecutors and judges should stop. It is a flagrant violation of international law. It perpetuates an indefensible double standard of tiers of justice based on ethnicity, religion, and nationality. And by fomenting hatred it makes Israel less secure.  

Finally, it should stop because it reflects badly on the United States. The Israel Defense Forces are a major recipient of U.S. aid, and the United States should not explicitly or implicitly condone a flawed system of justice that systematically abuses and violates the rights of Palestinian children.