President leader Yasser Arafat said Tuesday that Israel's policy of preventing children from reaching schools "is a crime and inhumane."

He made the remarks on occasion of the Palestinian Children's Day that was celebrated on Monday.

Addressing a children's rally at his besieged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat stressed that the Palestinian children would defeat the aggression and the occupation by their high morale.

Arafat pointed to the sufferings of the Palestinian children, describing the Israeli acts as "brutal".