Wounded Palestinian children are seen in a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, after an Israeli air strike Monday (Reuters photo)

RAMALLAH — Of the hundreds of Palestinian children locked in Israeli jails each year, the vast majority suffer nightmares, bed-wetting and anxiety after their release, Save the Children said in a report published on Monday.

The charity said that since 2000, the Israeli army had detained more than 8,000 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank and prosecuted children as young as 12 in military courts, most of them suspected of stone-throwing.

Ninety-eight per cent of detained children reported being subjected to violence, either physical or verbal, by Israeli soldiers, the charity’s programme adviser Eyad Al Araj told a news conference in the West Bank, an ordeal that left psychological scars on almost all of them.

“Over 90 per cent of these children suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder,” Araj said.

The report on Israeli detention of Palestinians under the age of 18 is based on a survey of 292 children who had been held and released by Israel.

Last year, 2,301 children were taken into custody, down from 3,470 in 2010, according to data collected by the Palestinian rights group Defence for Children International (DCI). There are currently 170 Palestinian minors in Israeli jails, DCI said.

“Detention has a devastating impact on children, their families and their societies,” said the report.

“Children suffer from effects including post-traumatic stress disorder, fear of leaving the house, in addition to psychological symptoms such as anxiety attacks and nightmares. Families become overprotective and refuse to let children out of the house,” it said.

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