Last year, at the beginning of Lent 2025, I joined a group of students, scholars, and activists on a Sabeel trip to the “Holy Land.” While I was reflecting on what exactly is “holy” in a moment in which the region is filled with strife and conflict, the arid landscape echoed back to me as a forceful impression of my dreary thoughts.
I began to contemplate the experiences of suffering Palestinians, and it stirred an expectation that this trip would be life-changing in some way.
I connected deeply with colleagues and hosts, and together we learned about the daily struggles of Palestinians. One of the aspects of daily life we learned was how Palestinians were legally and functionally relegated to second-class status, which shaped the way I experienced this trip.
On one of these outings, I saw something truly disturbing. A little boy, well under 13, was placed in an Israeli police vehicle, outside of the Old City. In that moment, my heart dropped, and dread crawled over my skin.
The image of that child stayed with me for weeks and months afterward. It was not only a vivid scene, but also brought into focus the conditions Palestinian children face in Israeli detention. In light of the Lenten calendar and the pressing need to highlight these injustices, I want to offer a Lenten invitation that makes Palestinian child detention in Israeli prisons visible, and that calls Christians to prayerful attention, lament, and action.
To put a finer point on these circumstances, consider the story of Shadi Khoury, a 16-year-old child who was taken from his home on October 12, 2022.
According to reports, he was severely beaten and dragged out of his home, leaving a trail of blood. While in detention, he was beaten unconscious multiple times, left in isolation, and interrogated. He was then placed on house arrest and has been in and out of Israeli court. He was falsely convicted on the coerced confession of children who later testified in court that they did not know him. The conviction was of him participating in a protest, and he began serving his sentence this year. Shadi Khoury’s experience, sadly, is not isolated.
Worse, nearly half of the children held in detention are not facing formal charges and have no trial scheduled.
Legally, Palestinians can be held in administrative detention. In the West Bank, six-month detention orders can be renewed again and again on the basis of an alleged preventive security risk, resulting in imprisonment without conviction. Our understanding of the conditions inside detention is limited, but the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory reports that between October 7, 2023 and August 31, 2025, at least 75 Palestinians, including a 17-year-old, died in Israeli detention.
The same reporting indicates that in November 2025, at least 360 Palestinian children from the occupied West Bank alone were held in Israeli detention. Israel is the only country that systematically prosecutes children.
Under international human rights law, Article 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) protects children against unlawful or arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and torture. It also requires access to legal protections and due process. At minimum, violating these standards is a breach of Israel’s treaty obligations under the CRC.
Further, a 2013 UNICEF report on child detention in Israel concluded that ill-treatment of children “appears to be widespread, systemic and institutionalized.” An additional legal dispute concerns scope, since Israel has claimed that the CRC does not apply to Gaza and the West Bank.
Although this picture looks bleak, hope can be found in Christian advocacy for the dignity and rights of children everywhere, especially right now in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Hope also takes concrete form in international pressure and policy proposals. For example, House Rep. Betty McCollum is expected to re-introduce “The Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act,” offering special protections for Palestinian children. A previous iteration of this effort was introduced and was the central component of the No Way To Treat a Child campaign. Other efforts include the Let Children Live campaign by Churches for Middle East Peace, as well as global advocacy from Amnesty International.
Disrupting the Theological Abstraction in Order to See Suffering Palestinian Children
This Lent, I want to bring the suffering of Palestinian children into focus. The Lenten calendar is meant to prepare Christians for the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. Through these 40 days, we are led into contemplation, reflection, and spiritual awareness of our own inadequacies and sin, as well as the communal responsibilities our churches have neglected. We fall far short of the righteousness of Jesus and the forgiveness offered through his life, death, and resurrection. One of those shortcomings is our unwillingness to name and challenge the injustice of child detention in Israeli prisons.
Focusing on concrete examples of child detention disrupts the theological abstraction we often fall into.
Too easily, we reflect on words like “sin,” “brokenness,” and “injustice” without putting our hands to the work of change or raising our voices in a chorus against harm. Although it is demoralizing and grievous to face the realities of child detention and the mistreatment of Palestinians, I want to offer a reflection shaped by the temptation of Jesus.
Jesus faced the temptations of hunger, testing God, and power and worship (Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13). We face our own struggles in a world saturated with partisan politics, theological simplicity, social unrest, and the instability of life. With the suffering of Palestinian children in view, I want to name three temptations we face in this moment.
1. We face the temptation to overlook injustice in exchange for comfort.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, offered a troubling reminder in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Our lives are full of distractions, and many of us in the West live with relative wealth and comfort. Yet we are called to speak out and to raise awareness for those who are suffering.
2. We face the temptation of false peace, claiming that peace is present when it is not.
The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel were keenly aware of this dynamic, calling out those who proclaimed peace even as judgment drew near (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; Ezek. 13:10, 16; Mic. 3:5).
A peaceful life is more desirable than a contentious one marked by conflict and disagreement. But “peace” can become a way to create structure and meaning for ourselves when instability and injustice surround us. We settle into patterns and habits that numb our moral awareness, instead of receiving and acting on the moral perception God has given us to discern what is happening in the world around us.
3. We face the temptation of theological certainty that dulls our moral senses in the face of injustice.
Many of us are certain of the moral character of the Israeli Defense Forces. We are certain they could not commit war crimes or crimes against humanity, even when detailed analyses argue otherwise. We are certain that God promised “Israel” the land, regardless of the desires, autonomy, or basic justice owed to those who live there. And we are certain that our moral intuitions have been shaped primarily by Scripture rather than by political and cultural ideals.
As we reflect on these temptations, I invite us to consider the path from temptation to exaltation. When we face temptation honestly and name our faults as a communal practice, we make space for God to use us to confront injustice, to center stories like Shadi Khoury’s, and to support initiatives such as Let Children Live.
In the face of hopelessness and uncertainty, we can take solace in the truth that trials and temptations are not the final destination. Exaltation and resurrection into new life are.
Rubin James Yi McClain is an Ambassador Warren Clark Fellow with Churches for Middle East Peace and recently completed a PhD in New Testament at the University of Glasgow. His work explores how multiethnic identities were negotiated and utilized as fluid concepts in the ancient world, and how these dynamics continue to shape Christian theology and discourse today. He also writes about peacebuilding in the Middle East, with particular attention to Israel and Palestine. Beyond his writing, Rubin is deeply committed to ecumenical engagement. He regularly organizes outings to visit and learn from different liturgical traditions, cultivating dialogue and appreciation for the diverse and vibrant expressions of the Christian faith.
One Response
Thank you for sharing about these Palestinian children in detention centers.