“States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.

States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”

– Article 6, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, September 1990.

On this International Day of Human Rights, my thoughts are with the forgotten children of Palestine. It was, after all, the children of Jabalya refugee camp whom reminded me of the urgency of their situation. Children in ragged clothes, playing barefoot very near to an open sewage pond. That was 14 years ago, when things were much better. Since then, the world has turned its back on them even more, their suffering is largely ignored, and their most basic rights are being violated on a daily basis to an unimaginable level.

While the nations of the world allegedly strive to uphold human rights and “fight terrorism,” the innocent children of Palestine continue to be victims of state-sponsored terrorism, colonialism, and racism. Children who have been denied the most basic of human rights. Children who run around barefoot throughout Gaza and the West Bank, doomed to a life of poverty and despair. Children who are suffering from malnutrition due to Israel’s strangulation of the Palestinian economy, trade, and movement. Children who are subject, together with their families, to frequent and prolonged military curfews. Children who are detained without charge (there are currently at least 338 Palestinian children detainees in Israeli prisons). Children who’s homes are demolished (more than 4,000 homes have been demolished). Children who are used by the Israeli Occupation Forces as human shields. Children who are shot at on a daily basis, for no reason other than their nationality (more than 600 have been killed in the past 4 years, and thousands injured). Children who are wetting themselves at night because they are terrified by the Israeli war machine. Children who are denied a normal life, or even the most basic amenities that we take for granted.

The Israeli Occupation Forces have been targetting Palestinian children, without causing any international uproar, thanks to a well-oiled propaganda machine and the obedient cooperation of Western media. There have been numerous occurences of cold-blooded murder of Palestinian children throughout the past 4 years, but such stories rarely find their way into mainstream media.

One striking and recent example is the case of Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old schoolgirl, in Gaza. Documentation from that incident has revealed that the child was shot after soldiers had identified her as a terrified girl who was trying to run away. The officer in charge then walked over to the fallen girl and proceeded to empty his weapon into her body, instructing his men that “anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed”. Twenty bullet holes were found in Iman’s corpse, including 5 in her head.

Less than two weeks ago, Israeli Occupation Forces shot and seriously wounded a four-year-old Palestinian girl in Rafah. Shayma Abu Shammala was playing in the backyard of her home when soldiers opened fire on her from a military tower manning the Egypt-Gaza border. She was hit by several bullets and is in critical condition.

That same day, also in Rafah, 16-year-old Mahmud Said Qishta died of wounds he sustained when he was playing outside his home and inadvertently stepped on an explosive device left by the Israeli army.

Ten days ago, at 4 o’clock in the morning, the Israeli Occupation Forces stormed the Dheisheh refugee camp and ordered the Hammash families out of their homes. The building, including a kindergarten that it housed, were dynamited and destroyed within 30 minutes, because one of the families’ sons was found guilty of resisting the occupation. The families, including their many children, were left out in the cold, with literally the shirts on their backs, and 120 children were left without a kindergarten.

Just this week, Israeli soldiers have admitted to killing a Palestinian boy in Khan Yunis “for sport.” According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, an undisclosed number of Israeli soldiers shot and killed 15-year-old Khalid Mahdi while he was working with his father on their farm. Khalid’s father said “Seven bullets pierced my son’s head, so you can’t talk here about a mistake or random gunfire. This was an act of direct and clear sharp shooting.”

In his story “A Gaza Diary” (Harper’s Magazine, October 2001), Chris Hedges reported that “yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”

Not to forget British human rights activist Tom Hurndall’s fatal attempt to rescue Palestinian schoolchildren who were being shot at. Hurndall, wearing the fluorscent orange vest of a noncombatant (just as Rachel Corrie did), shepherded a scared boy away from the line of Israeli gunfire. He then turned around to save a little girl, and as he did, he was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers.

This is just a small sample of the numerous atrocities committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces against Palestinian children. And only in cases where an incident gets media attention, the military puts on an appearance of questioning the concerned officer, but consistently concludes that it was “a regrettable accident.” The more fitting conclusion is that the Israeli Occupation Forces have a policy of deliberately targetting children.

To add insult to injury, the Israeli propaganda machine, and the complicit Western media, have often suggested that Palestinian parents and schools teach their children “to hate” and encourage them to put themselves in danger and to “seek martyrdom.” This nonsense is racist at its core, implying that Palestinians don’t care about their children like all other humans do. Anyone who has visited the West Bank and Gaza knows very well how much Palestinian parents cherish their children and prohibit them from doing anything that would endanger their lives. However, this is not enough to keep them safe, as Israeli Occupation Forces are killing children in their own homes.

On this international day of human rights, let us remember the children of Palestine, who have suffered enormous injustices ever since the dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1948. Susan Abulhawa, on her visit to Jerusalem, reported that she saw “the faces of children robbed of childhood. Caught between a cruel military occupation and oppressive poverty, the life of a Palestinian child is profoundly heartbreaking.” KinderUSA, a humanitarian relief organization focusing on children’s needs, reminds us that “we must not ignore a child’s plea for help and that all children are born with fundamental freedoms. They are entitled to the rights of survival, health, and education.”

Let us not forget that it is the children who are suffering the most, as they are being deprived of their childhoods and their most basic human rights. Let us bring the required attention to their plight, and dedicate our energies to making things right for them.

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A Message from Tamer, who lives in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem:

I am Refugee… I am proude that I am a palestinian guy… what I wanted to say is, I wanted for the god to give me the freedom and the childhood, but now I am young man and I dont need my lost childhood any more… if the freedom come to me some day to ask me to choose between my self and the iraqi children, I will not choose it for myself, because I already felt the pain of the occupation so I dont wish it for the others… HELP THE CHILDHOOD AND PEACE….please

The Sad smile will be happy if there will be justice and love with peace

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Organizations that work on relief for the children of Palestine include:

KinderUSA (Kids in Need of Development and Relief, www.kinderusa.org) works to alleviate the suffering of children and their families by bringing material goods into areas of disaster, to provide material support to those living in refugee camps, to initiate educational, health, and rehabilitation programs, and to dynamically reverse the psychological damage caused to these innocent beings due to the horrors of conflict. See .

Playgrounds for Palestine (www.playgroundsforpalestine.org) is dedicated to building playgrounds and recreation areas for Palestinian children living under military occupation. They have already built 3, and are now working on playgrounds for Rafah and Hebron. Be sure to check founder Susan Abulhawa’s essays on their site.

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (www.pcrf.net) works to locate in the U.S. free medical care for children who cannot be adequately treated in the Middle East. PCRF also sends medical equipment and supplies to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Lebanon. See related story by Rana El-Khatib, who is currently hosting one of these children.

Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund (www.pcwf.org) works to provide the children with their basic needs such as food, clothing, educational tools and health care.

Defense for Children International – Palestine (www.dci-pal.org/english) is dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – as articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as in other international human rights instruments – and to facilitating the creation of an environment which is aware of and respects children’s rights.

Please support these and other organizations in their urgent relief efforts for the children of Palestine!

Additional Resources (films and books):

Films that shed light on children’s suffering include the documentaries Frontiers of Dreams and Fears, Gaza Strip, Children of Fire, Children of Shatila, Children of Ibdaa, Jenin Jenin, and the feature film Tale of the Three Jewels. Relevant books include Stolen Youth, Dreaming of Palestine, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa and other stories, In Search of Palestine, Palestine (comic), and On The Hills of God. These are all available at www.palestineonlinestore.com.

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