Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the combined second, third and fourth periodic reports of Israel, adopted by the Committee at its pre-sessional working group for the sixty-second and sixty-third sessions (8–12October 2012)

The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, if possible before 1February 2013. Information should include information on all territories under the State party’s jurisdiction in accordance with international law, including the Occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) and the Occupied Syrian Golan.

The Committee will take up all aspects of children’s rights contained in the Convention and its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict during the dialogue with the State party.

Part I

In this section, the State party is requested to submit its responses to the following questions (30 pages maximum).

1.Please provide detailed information on the measures and programmes taken to implement the Committee’s previous recommendations on discrimination within the jurisdiction of the State party, including:

(a)Legislation enacted to expressly prohibit discrimination within the jurisdiction of the State party;

(b)Legislation, policies and programmes to prevent discrimination, against Arab Israeli, Bedouins, Ethiopians and other minorities; and

(c)Steps taken to follow up on the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.

2.Please provide details of the measures taken to ensure that:

(a)All children, including children of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, are provided with a birth certificate and to facilitate the registration process;

(b)Palestinian children born in East Jerusalem are registered and provided with an identity card and passport; and

(c)Family reunification and movement forPalestinian children and families throughout the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, are ensured.

3.With regard to paragraph 196 of the State party report, please inform the Committee of the steps taken by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services in order to “issue an order granting equal services in the fields of medical care general assistance and social services for children who have no legal status in Israel”.

4.Please provide detailed information on programmes and policies to prevent abuse and neglect of children, including protection mechanisms and mandatory reporting, within the State party.

5.Please provide updated information on the steps taken to enforce the legal prohibition of corporal punishment in all settings, including in the family, in schools and in detention.

6.Please provide detailed information on progress made, including enacting and/or amending legislation, policy and programmes, in providing children deprived of a family environment with family-type care wherever possible.

7.Please provide updated and detailed information concerning the measures taken to promote inclusive education and inclusion in society of children with all forms of disabilities and to ensure that children with disabilities attend inclusive schools and are not absent from school for prolonged periods as discussed in paragraph 185 of the State party report.

8.Please provide information regarding policies and programmes implemented to reduce the gap in health indicators between Jewish and Arab Israeli as well as other minority children in particular in life expectancy and infant mortality.

9.Please provide detailed information concerning health services and standard of living in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory and the Occupied Syrian Golan, including:

(a)Delays of, and interference with, medical personnel and patients at Israeli checkpoints;

(b)Shortages of basic medical supplies, including essential medicines; and

(c)Procedures for, and delays in, permission for the transfer of patients from the Gaza Strip to medical facilities in Israel, elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territory or abroad.

10.Please provide information on measures taken to ensure access to safeand sufficient drinking water, adequate sanitation and hygiene facilities for all children within the State party’s territory.

11.With regard to the Committee’s previous concluding observations (CRC/C/15/Add.195,para.51), please provide detailed information on policies and programmes to prevent the demolition of homes and property of Palestinian families, and to provide remedies to victims of demolition. Please also provide information on the measures taken to ensure that adequate construction permits are issued, and building materials available, to rebuild homes that have been destroyed.

12.Please provide updated and detailed information on the policies and programmes established to combat child poverty among all children within the State party’s jurisdiction, including addressing:

(a)The gap between Jewish and Arab Israeli children;

(b)The greaterlevels of poverty among large families and single-parent families; and

(c)The high levels of poverty and food aid dependency in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory.

13.Please provide updated and detailed information concerning the legislation, policies and programmes implemented to rectify the differences in enrolment rates, quality and number of facilities and resources allocated between the Hebrew and Arab education sector. In that regard, please also provide updated information on measures taken to counter the high dropout rates of immigrant children.

14.Please provide detailed information concerning the access to education of children in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory and the Occupied Syrian Golan, including early childhood development. In particular, please provide information on the availability of adequate school buildings and facilities and on the measures taken to ensure that schools and children are not attacked by Israeli Defence Forces or Israeli settlers.

15.Please provide detailed and updated information on measures taken by the State party to prevent settler violence against children.

16.Please inform the Committee of the progress made to comply with the Committee’s previous concluding observations made in 2002 (CRC/C/15/Add.195, paras. 62 and 63) and under its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict in 2010 (CRC/C/OPAC/ISR/CO/1, paras. 33–36) regarding the practices of arrest and interrogation of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory by Israeli security forces. In particular, please provide detailed information regarding:

(a)Whether the State party continues to hold criminal proceedings against children in military courts and hold children in administrative detention and, if so, how many, of what ages and on what charges;

(b)The types of interrogation techniques used with children;

(c)Measures taken to prevent incommunicado detention and solitary confinement of children;and

(d)The transfer of children from the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory to Israel, in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

17.Please also provide information on measures taken to prosecute and hold accountable Israeli security forcesor settlers who have injured or killed children in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory.

18.Please provide updated information on steps taken to prevent Palestinian children being used as human shields by the Israeli army, in compliance with the decision of the Israeli High Court that ruled this practice illegal and the Committee’s recommendations under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC/C/OPAC/ISR/CO/1, paras. 24 and 25).

19.Please provide information on the steps taken to implement the Committee’s recommendations under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC/C/OPAC/ISR/CO/1), inter alia, on:

(a)The clearance of all anti-personal mines in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory, southern Lebanon and the Occupied Syrian Golan;

(b)The prevention and criminalization of the recruitment of minors, or their use in hostilities;

(c)The outcome of the investigations and prosecutions as a result of the Operation “Cast Lead” in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, including in relation to the allegations of child rights violations in the report of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict (A/HRC/12/48); and

(d)The prohibition of the sale of arms when the final destination is a country where children are known to be or may potentially be recruited or used in hostilities.

20.Please provide information on the implementation of the Anti-Infiltration Law of January 2012 which allows for the automatic detention of children for a minimum period of three years and indicate whether this law is compatible with the obligations of the State party to ensure that detention of children is used only as a last resort.

21.Please provide detailed information on educational and health-care services provided to children in detention.

22.Please provide information on the measures taken to provide unaccompanied minors with all legal safeguards from the moment of entering the country.

Part II

In this section the Committee invites the State party to provide a brief update (no more than three pages in length) on the information presented in its report regarding:

(a)New bills, laws, or military orders, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions (and their mandates) or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing; and

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information, if available, which should include all territory under the State party’s jurisdiction in accordance with international law, including the Occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) and the Occupied Syrian Golan.

1.Please provide consolidated budget information for the last three years on budget lines regarding children and social sectors, by indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and gross national product and geographic allocation.

2.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, socioeconomic background and geographical location, regarding the situation of children deprived of a family environment and separated from their parents. Please provide data for the last three years on the number of children:

(a)Separated from their parents;

(b)Placed in institutions;

(c)Placed with foster families; and

(d)Adopted domestically or through intercountry adoptions.

3.Please specify, for the last three years, the number of children with disabilities disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin and geographical location:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)In institutions;

(c)Attending regular schools; and

(d)Attending special schools.

4.Please provide, for the last three years, data disaggregated by age, sex and ethnic origin, geographical location on:

(a)The enrolment and completion rates in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools;

(b)Number and percentage of dropouts and repetitions; and

(c)Teacher-pupil ratios.

5.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, socioeconomic situation and geographical location, for the last three years on children deprived of their liberty, including those in pretrial detention, specifying the reasons for their arrest and detention, offences for which they have been convicted, their sentences and place of detention and the number of children who have benefited from alternatives to deprivation of liberty.

6.In addition, the State party may list areas affecting children that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Conventionand its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.