While sifting through the latest news about events on the West Bank and Gaza on a favorite site, the Electronic Intifada (EI), I came across the above flyer, carrying the words,
Every day of occupation, whether it witnesses us burying our young or not, eats away at each of us.
Then this title fell off the screen,
Children playing with kite, man on bike killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, a report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), published two days ago on EI, with this picture:
The two children shown, Zaher Jaber Mohammed al-Majdalawi and Ahmed Sabri Aba Zbaida, were both 14 and lived in the nearby Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. They were both killed by the military occupation as were the more than 800 children killed by Israeli military forces and settlers and 120 Israeli children killed by retaliatory attacks within Israel since the year 2000. The full story of Zaher and Ahmed’s deaths was reported as follows:
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have continued their military operations in the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks. On Friday, 1 June 2007, IOF killed two Palestinian children and wounded a third one in the northern Gaza Strip, and extrajudicially executed a member of the Islamic Jihad in the south. Since the beginning of this latest IOF offensive on the Gaza Strip, 55 Palestinians, including 23 civilians, have been killed and dozens of others, mostly civilians, have been wounded. PCHR is deeply concerned over the policy of retaliation practiced against Palestinian civilians, which threatens their lives, especially as IOF have continued to attack targets in civilian populated areas.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR:
At approximately 12:00 on Friday, 1 June 2007, an IOF infantry unit positioned on a wooden land in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, nearly 100 meters away from the beach, opened fire at four Palestinian children, who were playing with kites near the beach. Three children were wounded, whereas the fourth one was able to escape. Two of the children were left in the area bleeding to death. According to the third child who was wounded, 16-year-old Mohammed Ibrahim al-‘Atawna, from Jabalya refugee camp, a kite fell near the area where IOF soldiers were hiding, and when they went to get it, IOF soldiers opened fire at them. Soon after, the soldiers moved towards the children. They asked al-‘Atwana, who was wounded by a gunshot to the back, about the condition of the other two children who were wounded by several gunshots throughout their bodies. He told them that the children were in a critical condition. They left the two children bleeding to death in the area and evacuated al-‘Atawna to an Israeli hospital, where he had received medical treatment before he was transferred to a hospital in Beit Lahia. The two children who were killed were identified as:
- Zaher Jaber Mohammed al-Majdalawi, 14; and
- Ahmed Sabri Aba Zbaida, 14, both from Jabalya refugee camp.
At approximately 20:30 also on Friday, an IOF aircraft fired two missiles at a Palestinian who was riding a bicycle in al-Shanaliya Street in the north of Khan Yunis. He was instantly killed. He was identified as Fadi ‘Abdul Qader Abu Mustafa, 22, a member of the al-Quds Brigades (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad).
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6993.shtml
By permission.
One must ask: would these children, and all the others, have died except for the military occupation, which has now lasted for 40 years? The military occupation must stop.
