This article was originally published by Maan News and is republished with permission.

The Palestinian Child's Week festival opened on Thursday afternoon in the Abu Ammar hall in Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. The festival began with sport shows and theatre acts.

The shows, which were presented by Ibda' institution in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, were transmitted live on Al-Jazeera satellite television.

Thousands of children from Bethlehem and Hebron marched from the "Statue of the Martyrs" in Deheisheh refugee camp to Abu Ammar hall.

While in Nablus in the north of the occupied West Bank, nearly 500 children participated in a march marking Palestinian Child's Day. The demonstration was organized by the Al-Qastal scout group and Al-'Oja river association; it was held in Balata refugee camp in southern Nablus.

The participants held signs calling for the restoration of children's rights, stripped from them by the Israeli occupation.

They demanded the concerned parties to pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to end its practices against children. At the end of the march the children staged a sit-in opposite the offices of the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA.