limited access to Israeli education, which uses a different curriculum than the Palestinian Authority and therefore puts them at a distinct disadvantage upon release. These infringements upon Palestinian children’s rights have a hugely detrimental impact on their mental and physical health and ability to function after release, often leading to an inability to continue schooling.251 This has prompted UNICEF to declare that this amounts to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of Palestinian child prisoners, which is prohibited by the CRC and the CAT,252 and that this ill-treatment “appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized.”253 . Palestinian children are tried in military courts where they are afforded fewer rights and basic fair trial guarantees.254 Evidence or confessions extracted through torture are admissible in court, in violation of Article 15 of the CAT, and indeed prosecutors often rely on these confessions to convict the child.255 Their appearance in court is usually the first time these children see lawyers or family. Most children plead guilty in these courts because it results in less prison time.256 It is therefore unsurprising that 99 percent of cases tried in the military courts result in conviction.257 Finally, until 2011, Palestinian children were tried as adults at age 16, while Israelis, in concordance with international law, are tried as adults at 18. In September 2011 Military Order 1676 raised the majority age of Palestinians to 18,258 yet children of 16 may still be held with adults.259 “I was imprisoned for 11 days after being arrested from my home in the middle of the night. I was taken to a detention center first, and then to Ofer Prison. Every single day I was summoned in the morning for interrogation to Etzion detention center [south of Bethlehem] and then sent back to Ofer in the evening. I couldn’t even attend my trials in court as I was in interrogation. 251 Addameer, Imprisonment of Children, op. cit., February 2016 252 UNICEF, Children in Israeli Military Detention, Observations and Recommendations, February 2013 pages 9-10. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/oPt/UNICEF_oPt_Children_in_Israeli_Military_ Detention_Observations_and_Recommendations_-_6_March_2013.pdf 253 Ibid, page 13 254 DCI Palestine, No Way to Treat a Child: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System, op. cit., April 2016, page 17 255 DCI and OMCT, Ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention and Use of Excessive Force by Israeli Forces, op. cit., 27 March 2016, page 2 256 DCI Palestine, Military Detention, op. cit. 257 DCI Palestine, No Way to Treat a Child: Palestinian Children in the Israeli Military Detention System, op. cit., April 2016, page 1 258 UNICEF, Children in Israeli Military Detention, Observations and Recommendations, February 2013 page 8. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/oPt/UNICEF_oPt_Children_in_Israeli_Military_ Detention_Observations_and_Recommendations_-_6_March_2013.pdf 259 Addameer, Imprisonment of Children, op. cit., February 2016 69