In the name of “self-defense,” the Israel Defense Forces In less than five months, they killed around 10,000 children. One Palestinian child dies every 15 minutes in Gaza.
We now know that Israel killed people. There are 29,000 Palestinians. I saw the Israel Defense Forces. stream I was watching their war crimes. loot the house And even more steal property; We can always use our mobile phones to watch footage of Israeli airstrikes. Gaza and Lebanon. Yesterday I saw a picture of two boys, brothers, lying dead, their bodies wrapped around each other on the street. After a sniper shot them. One was 20 years old and the other 13 years old. Their names were Ramez and Nahed Barbak. Nahed, 13, took to the streets carrying a white flag. The sniper shot him multiple times anyway. He was an adult paid by the government whose job it was to identify and “eliminate” targets, and who deliberately killed the two boys.
Very often I am reminded of the following poem by Khalid Juma:Oh, the children of the rascals of Gaza.“I want to share Juma’s words here because I can’t think of a new way to say that Palestinian children have a right to life.
“O rascals of Gaza,
You were always disturbing me with your screams below me.
window,
You, whose mornings were full of rush and confusion;
You broke my vase and stole the lonely flower above me
balcony,
come back –
And scream all you want,
and broke all the vases,
Steal all the flowers
come back,
I just came back…”
He wrote this in 2014. Almost a decade later, children in Gaza are now living in even more fear than before. How can a poem that nostalizes the laughter and mischief of children whose bodies were shattered by bombs retain meaning and urgency? How should we coexist with apathy, economic complicity, and growing apathy?
I think about these children every day. I don’t know how we can stop thinking about them.
hind rajab She was six years old when she cried for three hours on the phone with Palestinian emergency services. She was in a car with her family when Israeli Defense Forces shot at her family. She had the courage to call for help even though she was trapped in a car with the bodies of her family. The IDF killed the paramedics who came to save her, and they killed her. A 6-year-old trapped in a car for several days with the body of her loved one. She is 6 years old. She was intentionally killed by people who lived long enough to willingly give her life to killing others. What would Hind have done with her life if she had been allowed to continue living like this? What about Nahed, the 13-year-old who bravely raised the white flag against her sniper?
Forced absenteeism due to military occupation is extremely high. November 3rd, X user @freelancerdoaa posted a photo of her daughter Shyam smiling while holding a cake with the number 5 on it. “It took a lot, but I was finally able to hold a birthday party for my girlfriend’s daughter. Her happiness was worth the world. ” Now, many months later, I keep thinking about how much effort it took for a woman named Doaa to prepare to celebrate her daughter who was directly attacked by a military. The resilience and love of the Palestinian people is almost incomprehensible to us.
report Word spread that Doaa and her daughter had been murdered shortly after Shyam’s makeshift birthday celebration.
After so many months, I can’t believe that in the midst of so much brutality, a woman can take the time to create a moment of joy for her child from almost nothing. . Still, there will be those who advocate the death of children. “Complicated.” Still, there are those who call Doaa and her beautiful daughter. “animal”.
“Everyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter.” said Rami Igla, former head of Mossad’s POW/MIA division. Is it because of the prejudice that has clearly emptied Igra’s heart that he looks away from children when he passes them on the street? I wonder if he has ever walked past an elementary school and heard their songs, and is he consciously distinguishing between those five-year-olds and “Hamas supporters”? May he and the other supporters of this genocide never again hear a children’s song without thinking of the children sentenced to death.
Because when someone is killed in an indiscriminate attack, that’s what Israel does. attack with the intention of killing as many people as possible — It’s not just the body that dies. Every thought they ever had, every stupid fight, every song they loved, every deep act of kindness, where does it all go? When more than 29,000 lives are grieved, where does the memory of the dead go? Now that both Shyam and his mother are gone, who will remember Shyam’s next birthday? If Israel continues her murders, who will remember her favorite color of the Hind, who will remember what made her happy? Who remembers Nahed’s laughter?
When we say that children deserve safety, comfort, joy, and hope, we are not just opposing the killing of children. Videos of parents carrying dismembered children in plastic bags are now everywhere. Videos of infants crying because they have lost limbs are everywhere. More than 10,000 children have died, and that cannot be tolerated in this lifetime or in what may come after. And how many children have the Israel Defense Forces disabled? How many are blind? How many thousands of people will never be able to walk, run, dance or play like children again?
How many of them, like little Hind, have seen their families killed in front of their eyes? How many of them have lost parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, siblings? How many Palestinian children have lost the people who have made them feel safe?
Killing a child’s loved one is the same as scarring that child for the rest of their life. Don’t get these numbers out of your head. 10,000 children were killed. At least 19,000 more adult Palestinians, equally deserving of life, loving, complex and hopeful, have died. Adults love their children deeply, and denying that is the same as denying their humanity.To claim to be in the majority The fact that “Hamas supporters” accounted for most of the dead defies logic. And to imply that a state has a “right” to commit genocide in any way is to inflict upon oneself the penalty of lifelong allegiance to sanctioned violence or lifelong regret. Become.
As I write this, Kamala Harris visits Pittsburgh. When she and other politicians don’t call this situation what it is, Genocide And unable to call for a ceasefire, they support killing children with impunity. There’s no other way to put it. In this country, even though there appears to be virtually no difference in the level of warmongering between the two parties, the election drama is so spineless that it seems as if the two parties are choosing between “good and evil.” I can’t continue to participate. We cannot allow the politicians who funded this genocide to walk away from it and pretend that they somehow represent our interests.
Again, at a loss as to how to argue that children deserve to have all their limbs, their loved ones, and a long, eventful life, I found a more sensible option. I rely on someone else’s words. In 1980, James Baldwin said this“Children, every child in the world, are always ours. And I begin to suspect that those who cannot recognize this are morally incompetent.”
Every adult in the world is responsible for the safety of children. Currently, there is no greater threat to its security. military industrial complex And that settler colonial project we are witnessing. Don’t forget these kids. Remember, the people who are showing sympathy to get your vote are the ones who are paying the murderers.
Sofia Uriagereka-Hellburger writes about politics and international and national social movements.She writes to her at the following address [email protected].