By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM

Young Palestinian Jerusalemites detained by Israeli police are made vulnerable by late-night arrests, lengthy interrogations and a lack of access to their parents or lawyers, Israeli rights groups said in a statement on Wednesday.

Palestinian teens "find themselves in a threatening and bewildering situation" because they often do not know what their rights are or why they have been arrested, according to the report by B'Tselem and HaMoked rights groups.

"Israel’s law enforcement system treats them as members of a hostile population all of whom, minors and adults alike, are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and employs against them extreme measures that it would never venture to use against other segments of the population," the groups said.

They said that while the police adhere to some legal procedures, for example by obtaining arrest warrants, they also do not follow Israeli laws on avoiding or limiting the detention of minors, using physical restraints on them, or interrogating minors at night.

"Palestinian teenagers from East Jerusalem are pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, unnecessarily handcuffed and then made to spend a long time waiting for their interrogation to begin. Only then, when they are tired and broken, they are taken in for lengthy interrogation sessions," the report said.

The Israeli police could not be contacted for comment at the time of publication.

According to Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer, 300 Palestinian minors are held in Israeli prisons.