United Nations (UN) officials have recently called for the release of all children in detention in Israel, including all Palestinian children. The UN estimates that there were 194 Palestinian children detained by Israeli authorities at the end of March. Most of these children are yet to be charged and are being held while waiting for trial, which may be delayed greatly due to the effects of COVID-19.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which both Israel and Palestine are members, states in Article 37 that detention should only be used as a ‘last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time’. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has recently released guidelines for states during the COVID-19 pandemic. Article 8 of this document recommends that children be released from all forms of detention, and if that is not possible, then allowed to maintain regular contact with family. Palestinian children in Israel cannot maintain regular contact with their parents as crossing the Green Line into Israel has become even more difficult due to Coronavirus restrictions.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday May 26, 2020

Quote of the day:

"If you discount the disgraceful events of Sunday outside the courtroom at Jerusalem District Court, where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stood trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, it was not entirely a bad day. After all, Sunday's events proved that we do live in a law-abiding country, where we can find a modicum of equality before the law for the rich as much as for the poor, the weak as much as the strong."
-- Former politician and journalist, Shelly Yachimovich, wrote in an interesting Op-Ed in Yedioth.*

Americans for Peace Now wishes a happy, healthy Eid al-Fitr to our Muslim Friends.

1. Bills, Resolutions, and Letters
2. SFRC Amends/Passes Israel Wish-List Bill
3. Hearings
4. On the Record

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

Heads up: New CRS report  — Israel: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, May 18, 2020 (including reference to annexation)

Update: this action, now closed, ran in the summer of 2020. 

Sumarins have lived in their family-built home in Jerusalem for 50 years. The Israeli court, as a result of a case brought by the Jewish National Fund's subsidiary organization, Himanuta, is soon likely to evict this Palestinian family from their East Jerusalem home.

The case rests on the application of Israel's unjust "Absentee Property Law" - and even an abuse of that law itself. It is part of a larger effort by Israeli settler organizations and their backers in the government to "Judaize" East Jerusalem at the expense of its inhabitants, like the Sumarin Family.

The eviction can be stopped, and the next few weeks will determine this family's fate. 

APN and Peace Now are part of an international coalition of groups that have united to defend the Sumarin family from this unjust eviction.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday May 20, 2020

Quote of the day:

"The man accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, who dragged an entire country through three costly election campaigns for a whole year in an attempt to evade justice, and who has, in the middle of an economic plague, just finished putting together the most bloated, wasteful, ostentatious, exploitative government Israel has ever known, is suddenly worried about the taxpayer’s money, and claims that his presence in court for a needless technical hearing would “cost the public a fortune.”
—Haaretz Editorial on the request by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be absent from the upcoming opening of his trial.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, slammed the European Union for publicly declaring its opposition to Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, calling it 'megaphone diplomacy' and said things should be discussed in 'intimate diplomatic dialogue.' He declared this on Twitter.**

APN is proud to join with 50 organizations from 17 countries in the initiative against Israeli annexation in the West Bank from the J-Link International Progressive Jewish Network, and in committing to take action to prevent this damaging, if not fatal, blow against the two-state solution and peace and security.