Childhood in the Gaza Strip is unlike anywhere else in the world. Here, thanks to Israel, a ten-year-old has already experienced the violence of three wars and has spent his entire life under brutal blockade.
The Israeli police ran over him, beat him, and instead of calling an ambulance, they arrested him – because he had a Palestinian flag on his bicycle.
In unprecedented actions, the front pages of the New York Times and the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz featured photos of the 67 children in Gaza who were killed by Israeli airstrikes this month. Some Israel partisans called this a ‘blood libel.’
The massacre early Sunday was “one of the most horrific crimes” Israel has committed during its ongoing war against the people of Gaza, according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
As Israel continues its attacks on Gaza, and Gazan resistance fighters retaliate, the death toll continues to rise; Israeli rhetoric grows more hawkish; the US stands solidly by Israel’s side.
Nisreen Hassan’s children are doing their best to cope in her absence. However, the realization that she has been taken away from them becomes very sharp. The practice of arresting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and then imprisoning them inside Israel violates international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that people living in an occupied territory may only be detained within that territory.
Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 20 Palestinians in Gaza today, the violence coming on the heels of a crackdown on Jerusalem’s Palestinians in which hundreds have been hospitalized.
A three-minute video by If Americans Knew about some of the many Palestinian children Israeli forces have killed over the past few years. American taxpayers, whose politicians expend $19 million per day on behalf of Israel, need to see this short video…
Being a child while Palestinian is full of risks. Airstrikes, home (and school) invasions, home (and school) demolitions, inability to access medical care – these are just some of the dangers of being not-Jewish in a land under Israeli control.
In a world where the oppressor always has the upper hand, this 15-year-old Palestinian boy had the courage to tell the story of his torture and rape while in Israeli custody. The practice is well-documented, but Israel has so far escaped accountability.