Occupied Jerusalem: A rights group on Monday slammed the alleged abuse of Palestinian children working on Israeli colonist farms in the occupied West Bank.

Hundreds of children, some as young as 11, have been working for low wages and in “hazardous” conditions on colonist farms in the Israeli-occupied sector of the Jordan Valley, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 74-page report.

The report, entitled Ripe for Abuse, added that Europe and the US were significant export markets for agricultural produce grown on Israeli colonist farms.

“Israel’s settlements [colonies] are profiting from rights abuses against Palestinian children,” HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

“Children from communities impoverished by Israel’s discrimination and settlement [colonist] policies are dropping out of school and taking on dangerous work because they feel they have no alternatives, while Israel turns a blind eye.”

The report, based on the accounts of 38 Palestinian children and 12 adults working on colonist farms, said that minors sometimes worked more than 60 hours a week in hot temperatures picking and spraying vegetables.

Many suffered cuts and injuries from sharp knives and machinery, and some suffered from bouts of vomiting and dizziness after spraying pesticides with “little protection”, it said.

HRW urged Israel to ban employment of Palestinian children in colonies.

“Israeli labour laws prohibit youth from carrying heavy loads, working in high temperatures, and working with hazardous pesticides, but Israel has not applied these laws to protect Palestinian children working in its settlements [colonies],” the New York-based watchdog said.

HRW also called on the US and Europe to exclude colony produce from the preferential tariffs provided to Israeli export products.

“Europe is a significant export market for settlement [colony] agricultural products, and some products are exported to the US.

“The EU has moved to exclude Israeli settlement [colony] products from the preferential tariff treatment it provides to Israeli goods... but [member states] have not instructed businesses to end” trade with settlement-based entities, it said.

“The US in practice continues to grant preferential treatment to Israeli settlement products under the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement.”