Palestinians not recruiting youth to fight, activists tell Mideast meeting

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - An international coalition campaigning to keep children out of war said Sunday that although young Palestinians have been caught up in the violence in Israel, they were not being recruited to fight. The issue was raised during a regional conference on child soldiers that opened in Jordan on Sunday. Israel was not invited to the conference.

The high number of Palestinian teens and children among the casualties since Israeli-Palestinian clashes erupted last September has led some Israelis to accuse Palestinian officials of deliberately putting children in harm's way.

But the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a group of human rights and aid organizations that helped organized the conference, said "there is no evidence of children being recruited by the Palestinian Authority or armed groups in the current" uprising.

"It is estimated that less than one per cent of the total Palestinian adolescent population have taken an active part in the clashes with the Israeli forces and this has been confined to demonstrations and stone throwing," said the statement issued by the coalition.

"Most of the children killed have been mere bystanders, in their homes or on their way to and from school," added Roy Mungoven, a coalition co-ordinator.

Kamel Abu Jaber, whose Jordan Institute of Diplomacy also helped organize the meeting, accused Israel of using excessive use of force against Palestinian children engaged in "civil disobedience" and armed only with "stones and innocence."

The conference was called to urge countries in the Mideast to activate a non-binding international agreement against the use of child soldiers that has been signed by more than 75 countries. The coalition also calls for the use of child soldiers to be recognized as a war crime.

The coalition was formed in 1998 by six leading private aid and human rights organizations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Save the Children Alliance, Jesuit Refugee Service, the Quaker United Nations office and the International Federation Terre des Hommes. Other groups later also joined the coalition, which maintains links with several UN agencies and operates in more than 40 countries.

Jordan's Queen Rania opened the conference with a speech read by Deputy Prime Minister Awad Khleifat.

The queen said it was time to stop "seeing boys and girls every morning carrying weapons heavier than their bodies and fighting for issues whose dimensions they do not understand."

A report issued by the coalition said that there are more than 300,000 children under 18 fighting with government armed forces and armed opposition groups in more than 30 countries worldwide. Millions more children receive military training and indoctrination in youth movements and schools, the coalition said.

In the Mideast and North Africa, according to the coalition, the armed forces of Mauritania and Israel accept conscripts below the age of 18.

The armed forces of Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya Mauritania and the security forces of the Palestinian Authority also accepted volunteers below 18. It said the minimum age in Algeria, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen is not clear.

In Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Turkey and Yemen there have been reports of children actively engaged in fighting with armed opposition group.