Sir, – The recently brokered ceasefire in Gaza offers a fragile hope for peace and the long-awaited exchange of prisoners and hostages.

The world rightly welcomes these reunions. Yet, as global attention focuses on Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian children in the West Bank remain imprisoned under Israel’s military justice system, forgotten and voiceless.

These minors, primarily from the occupied West Bank, were not bargaining chips in the Gaza-focused negotiations, leaving them to endure indefinite detention and hardship.

Human rights groups report that 378 Palestinian minors are currently held in Israeli custody, 112 of them in administrative detention – a practice allowing indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial.

Many are detained in military facilities such as Ofer and Megiddo, often alongside adults, subjected to 23-hour lockdowns, and interrogated without parents or legal counsel present. These protections are guaranteed to Israeli children under civilian law but denied to Palestinians under military rule. Military courts operate behind closed doors, evading oversight and eroding accountability.

No invocation of international law is needed to see the moral repugnance of this situation. When cruelty becomes policy, it corrodes the moral fabric of the society that enacts it.

If this ceasefire is to have meaning, compassion must extend to all children – Israeli and Palestinian alike. – Yours, etc,

EILEEN SEERY,

Gorey,

Co Wexford.

Sir, – Keith Duggan assigns US president Donald Trump too much credit for the ceasefire in Gaza (“You go to bed dreaming of a Nobel Peace prize and wake up to find a guy with latex gloves,” October 11th).

The main reason for the ceasefire is that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, calculates that he has achieved the maximal success possible at the current iteration of his strategy.

Israel is militarily dominant in the Middle East, and Netanyahu is politically dominant in the Knesset.

The US has continued to supply arms, and countries that once menaced Isr