The killing of children is a cornerstone of Israel’s war on Gaza
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Children have always been a casualty of wars. However, in conventional warfare, combatants rarely target them deliberately. But Gaza is not a conventional war. It is primarily a war against civilians — noncombatants. For the last 10 months, under the guise of Israel’s self-defense, Gaza’s civilians have been bombed in their homes, hospitals, UN schools, makeshift shelters and while running — en masse — for their lives after being given multiple orders to evacuate. More than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants are now displaced, with less than 10 percent of the entire enclave designated as safe.
Under the laws of war, civilians, especially women and children, are to be spared and protected. Gaza has proved to be a cruel and shameful exception.
As the official death toll of the war last week surpassed the ominous 40,000 Palestinian death mark, it should be noted that at least half of the fatalities are women and children. Forty percent of the total killed, 16,000, are children. Of these, 2,100 were aged under two. At least 17,000 Palestinians are now orphaned or have no living relatives to claim them. No fewer than 12,000 children are wounded, with an unknown number having lost at least one limb.
Thousands of Gazan children need psychological help, as they are suffering from trauma and shock. Many will never recover. More than 47 percent of Gaza’s population are children. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the estimated number of children under 18 years of age in the Gaza Strip is 544,776 males and 523,210 females, with about 15 percent of them (341,790) being under the age of five.
Much has been written about Israel’s war on Gaza by analysts and pundits. Politicians, UN rapporteurs, aid workers and international jurists have revealed much about the ongoing carnage. The war has been dissected from the political, geopolitical, security and humanitarian angles. But while the world has been focused on political efforts to reach an elusive ceasefire and deliver humanitarian aid in a sustainable and nonpolitical manner, one aspect of the war has received little attention: Israel’s deliberate killing of children.
No war in the last 60 years or so has produced such horrific rates of child mortality or injury. The US war in Vietnam claimed 882,000 Vietnamese lives, including 84,000 children, or less than 10 percent of the total. The Bosnia conflict of 1992 to 95 claimed the lives of 200,000, including 12,000 children, or 6 percent of the total.
During the American occupation of Afghanistan, which lasted almost 20 years, at least 100,000 Afghans were killed, including some 28,000 children, or 28 percent of the total; a staggering number considering the US claimed to have relied on surgical strikes.
As a result of the US war in Iraq, at least 250,000 Iraqis lost their lives, including 9,000 children, or 3.6 percent.
In the three-month Rwanda Genocide of 1994, about 800,000 people were killed, including 300,000 children, a horrifying 40 percent of the total. That appalling rate set a dismal record, which only Israel has now matched.
It is an understatement to say that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians in its Gaza war. The visuals, the testimonies and the grim facts testify to that. And yet Israel has not altered its policy after more than 300 days of incessant bombing, despite declarations by the UN and other independent observers. The deliberate killing of children is a cornerstone of Israel’s war on Gaza.
However, it is important to note that the facts and figures do not reflect the reality of the slaughter that Israel is carrying out against Palestinian children. We have yet to hear one Israeli official admit that those thousands of children are innocent victims in this conflict. There has been no mea culpa, no apologies and no regrets.
Those children have names and came from families with dreams and ambitions. One such victim was Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli soldiers in January. The troops fired more than 300 bullets at an ambulance, killing Hind and six of her family members, along with two paramedics as they attempted to rescue her. Under pressure, the US demanded an investigation. Israel never complied. Hind’s tragic murder has become a symbol of Israel’s killing of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza.
More recently, there was the heartbreaking story of newborn twins who were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza while their father was at a local government office registering their births. Asser, a boy, and Ayssel, a girl, were just four days old when they were killed as their father, Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan, went to collect their birth certificates. It is unlikely that Israel will be held accountable for their murder.
No war in the last 60 years or so has produced such horrific rates of child mortality or injury.
Osama Al-Sharif
As the International Criminal Court ponders issuing arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes, the carnage in Gaza continues, with babies killed and mothers losing their infants. This has become the daily reality in Gaza.
If these two attacks are not classed as war crimes, then what is? Hundreds of similar cases go unnoticed daily. Regardless of the outcome of the ongoing ceasefire talks, Israel must be held accountable for the deliberate killing of Palestinian children. Once the dust settles and independent investigators are allowed into the beleaguered enclave, the total number of civilian deaths will rise dramatically, and so will the percentage of child victims.
Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza would not have lasted so long if it were not for the US and the wider West’s unequivocal support of Israel. Under international law, those countries are complicit in the ongoing slaughter. Will we see a day when such crimes against humanity are punished? That is unlikely. The current world order is designed in such a way that the culprit — Israel in this case — will be exonerated or let off with a mild reprimand. That says all you need to know about such an order. And it also says a lot about an order whose time has passed.
- Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010
