Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah and the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday opened an international conference in Kuwait on the Israeli violations against Palestinian children.

The two-day conference was organized by the Arab League’s General Secretariat in cooperation with Kuwait’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor.

Abbas affirmed, in his address to the conference, that children are the most affected segment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli practices, pointing out that Israel has violated international agreements by opening prisons for children in 2009.

The United Nations a few days ago announced that there are 500 Palestinian children incarcerated in Israeli jails and expressed concern over their situation.

For his part, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmad Abu al-Gheit, called in his speech at the conference for developing mechanisms to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian children.

According to a statement issued by the Defense for Children International, nearly 2012 Palestinian children were killed between 2000 and 2016 at the hands of the Israeli occupations forces and settlers in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The conference is aimed at highlighting the suffering of the Palestinian children in view of Israel’s violations of the international conventions of the rights of the child.

It also discusses the educational, health and psychological conditions of the Palestinian children, the civil organizations’ role in promoting respect for their rights and mechanisms for providing legal protection for the children under the Israeli occupation.