[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2407 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2407

 To promote human rights for Palestinian children living under Israeli 
military occupation and require 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

                             April 30, 2019

 Ms. McCollum introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To promote human rights for Palestinian children living under Israeli 
military occupation and require that United States funds do not support 
     military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of 
             Palestinian children, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Promoting Human Rights for 
Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Children are entitled to special protections and due 
        process rights under international human rights law and 
        international humanitarian law, regardless of guilt or 
        innocence or the gravity of an alleged offense.
            (2) The Government of Israel and its 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 guarantees of due 
        process in violation of international standards.
            (3) Israel has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the 
        Child, 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, detention 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 deprived 
                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 deprived 
                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 decision on any such action''.
            (4) 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.
            (5) Approximately 2,900,000 Palestinians live in the West 
        Bank, of which around 45 percent are children under the age of 
        18, who have lived their entire lives under Israeli military 
        occupation.
            (6) Since 2000, more than 10,000 Palestinian children have 
        been subject to the Israeli military court system.
            (7) Israeli security forces detain children under the age 
        of 12 for interrogation for extended periods of time even 
        though prosecution of children under 12 is prohibited by 
        Israeli military law.
            (8) Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2018, reported 
        that Israeli Security Forces detained Palestinian children 
        ``often using unnecessary force, questioned them without a 
        family member present, and made them sign confessions in 
        Hebrew, which most did not understand''.
            (9) 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.
            (10) The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem issued 
        a report in 2018 describing the treatment of Palestinian 
        children under Israeli military occupation: ``Every year, 
        hundreds of Palestinian minors undergo the same scenario. 
        Israeli security forces pick them up on the street or at home 
        in the middle of the night, then handcuff and blindfold them 
        and transport them to interrogation, often subjecting them to 
        violence en route. Exhausted and scared--some having spent a 
        long time in transit, some having been roused from sleep, some 
        having had nothing to eat or drink for hours--the minors are 
        then interrogated. They are completely alone in there, cut off 
        from the world, without any adult they know and trust by their 
        side, and without having been given a chance to consult with a 
        lawyer before the interrogation. The interrogation itself often 
        involves threats, yelling, verbal abuse and sometimes physical 
        violence. Its sole purpose is to get the minors to confess or 
        provide information about others.''.
            (11) The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) concluded, 
        in a February 2013 report titled ``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''.
            (12) The 2013 UNICEF report further determines that the 
        Israeli system of military detention of Palestinian children 
        profoundly deviates from international 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''.
            (13) UNICEF also released reports in October 2013 and 
        February 2015 noting that Israeli authorities have, since March 
        2013, issued new military orders 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.
            (14) In 2013, the annual Country Report on Human Rights 
        Practices for Israel and the Occupied Territories (``Annual 
        Report'') published by the Department of State noted that 
        Israeli security services continued to abuse, and in some cases 
        torture minors, 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.
            (15) The State Department's 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 military courts''.
            (16) The State Department's 2016 Annual Report noted a 
        ``significant increase in detentions of minors'' in 2016, and 
        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.
            (17) The nongovernmental organization Defense for Children 
        International Palestine collected affidavits from 739 West Bank 
        children who were detained between 2013 and 2018, and concluded 
        that--
                    (A) 73 percent of the children endured physical 
                violence following arrest;
                    (B) under Israeli military law, children do not 
                have the right to a lawyer during interrogation;
                    (C) 96 percent of the children did not have a 
                parent present during their interrogation;
                    (D) 74 percent of the children were not properly 
                informed of their rights by Israeli police;
                    (E) interrogators used stress positions, threats of 
                violence, and isolation to coerce confessions from 
                detained children;
                    (F) 29 children were detained and placed in 
                administrative detention, or detention without charge 
                or trial, since Israel renewed the practice against 
                minors in October 2015, and
                    (G) 122 children were held in pre-trial, pre-charge 
                isolation for interrogation purposes for an average 
                period of 13 days.
            (18) Amendments to Israeli military law concerning 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.
            (19) In 2013, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of 
        the Child reviewed Israel's compliance with the Convention on 
        the Rights of the Child and declared that Palestinian 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.
            (20) The United Nations Committee Against Torture, in 2016, 
        reviewed Israel's compliance with the Convention Against 
        Torture and reported: ``allegations of many instances in which 
        Palestinian minors were exposed to torture or ill-treatment, 
        including to obtain confessions; were given confessions to sign 
        in Hebrew, a language they do not understand; and were 
        interrogated in the absence of a lawyer or a family member. The 
        Committee is also concerned that many of these children, like 
        many other Palestinians, are deprived of liberty in facilities 
        located in Israel, thus hindering access to visits of relatives 
        who live in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.''.
            (21) Existing Federal statutory provisions known as the 
        ``Leahy law'' codified at section 620M of the Foreign 
        Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378d and section 362 of 
        Title 10 of the United States Code, prohibit the United States 
        Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign 
        security forces where there is credible information implicating 
        that unit in the commission of gross violations of human 
        rights, including torture.
            (22) The United States provides in excess of $3.8 billion 
        in annual foreign military assistance to the Government of 
        Israel which enables the military detention and abuse of 
        Palestinian children by Israel's military system of juvenile 
        detention.

SEC. 3. PURPOSE.

    The purpose of this Act is to promote and protect the human rights 
of Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) the detention, prosecution, and ill-treatment of 
        Palestinian children living under military occupation in a 
        military court system that lacks basic and fundamental 
        guarantees of due process by the Government of Israel--
                    (A) violates international law and internationally 
                recognized standards of human rights;
                    (B) is contrary to the values of the American 
                people and the efforts of the United States to support 
                equality, human rights, and dignity for both 
                Palestinians and Israelis; and
                    (C) undermines efforts by the United States and the 
                international community to achieve a just and lasting 
                peace between Israel and the Palestinian people; and
            (2) Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations 
        working to advance human rights, justice, and equal treatment 
        for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, as 
        well as Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Israel, are essential 
        to promoting human dignity, democratic values, and 
        international humanitarian law, and therefore deserve 
        recognition and support from the United States and the American 
        people.

SEC. 5. STATEMENT OF POLICY.

    It is the policy of the United States to promote human rights for 
Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation and to 
declare Israel's system of military detention of Palestinian children 
as a practice that results in widespread and systematic human rights 
abuses amounting to gross violations of human rights inconsistent with 
international humanitarian law and the laws and values of the United 
States.

SEC. 6. LIMITATION ON ASSISTANCE TO SECURITY FORCES.

    (a) In General.--Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 
(22 U.S.C. 2378d; commonly known as the ``Leahy Law'') is amended by 
adding at the end the following new subsection:
    ``(e) Specific Limitations Concerning Military Courts.--
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds authorized to be 
appropriated for assistance to a foreign country may be used to support 
the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of 
children in violation of international humanitarian law or to support 
the use against children of any of the following practices:
            ``(1) Torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.
            ``(2) Physical violence, including restraint in stress 
        positions.
            ``(3) Hooding, sensory deprivation, death threats, or other 
        forms of psychological abuse.
            ``(4) Incommunicado detention or solitary confinement.
            ``(5) Administrative detention, including when a detainee 
        is held indefinitely, without charge or trial, by the order of 
        a military commander or other government official.
            ``(6) Arbitrary detention.
            ``(7) Denial of access to parents or legal counsel during 
        interrogations.
            ``(8) Confessions obtained by force or coercion.''.

SEC. 7. AUTHORIZATION OF FUNDS TO MONITOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND 
              PROVIDE TREATMENT TO PALESTINIAN CHILD VICTIMS OF 
              MILITARY DETENTION AND TORTURE.

    (a) Funding.--There is authorized to be appropriated not less than 
$19,000,000 each fiscal year to the Secretary of State to be made 
available to nongovernmental organizations from the United States, 
Israel, or the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the following 
purposes:
            (1) Monitoring human rights abuses associated with israel's 
        military detention of palestinian children.--
                    (A) In general.--Nongovernment organizations with 
                human rights experience are eligible to receive funding 
                under this subsection. Such funding shall be used to 
                monitor, assess, and document incidents of Palestinian 
                children subjected to Israeli military detention, 
                including interviews with victims, family members of 
                victims, relevant community members, health care 
                providers, legal advocates, civil society monitors, and 
                Israeli military officials.
                    (B) Public availability.--All information and 
                documentation gathered pursuant to subparagraph (A), 
                including affidavits, interviews, photographs, video, 
                and other relevant material, shall be made publicly 
                available via the internet and in annual reports 
                subject to the determination that published information 
                shall not put victims or sources at risk or in danger 
                resulting from persecution, retaliation, or 
                retribution.
                    (C) Limitation.--Funding under this paragraph may 
                not exceed 50 percent of total funds authorized to be 
                appropriated under this subsection.
            (2) Providing physical, psychological, and emotional health 
        treatment, support, and rehabilitation for palestinian children 
        victims of military detention, abuse, and torture.--
                    (A) In general.--Nongovernmental organizations with 
                experience in providing physical, psychological, and 
                emotional treatment for victims of abuse, trauma, or 
                torture described in subparagraph (B) are eligible to 
                receive funding under this subsection. Such funding 
                shall be provided to a collaboration of United States, 
                Israeli, and Palestinian treatment providers determined 
                by the Secretary of State to be best suited to meet the 
                rehabilitation needs of victims. No member of any 
                nongovernmental organization providing treatment under 
                this paragraph may be employed or act as an agent or 
                behalf of an intelligence agency of the United States, 
                Israel, or the Palestinian Authority.
                    (B) Eligibility.--Victims described in this 
                subparagraph are any Palestinian age 21 or younger 
                providing documentation of military detention as a 
                child having occurred since January 1, 2009.
                    (C) Reporting.--As a condition on the receipt of 
                funding under this subsection, nongovernmental 
                organizations shall issue an annual public report of 
                activities, including findings and a clinical 
                assessment of the physical and psychological effects of 
                military detention on children, adolescents, and adults 
                who experience trauma as children, and recommendations 
                to the international community regarding best practices 
                for treating child victims of military detention.
    (b) Program Name.--Amounts made available pursuant to subsection 
(a) shall be referred to as the ``Human Rights Monitoring and Treatment 
for Palestinian Child Victims of Israeli Military Detention Fund''.
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