Israeli soldiers enjoy killing Palestinian children. This is not hyperbole. This is a tragic fact.
The endless cruelty that we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank raises a crucial question—what is the point of remembering the Holocaust of the early 1940s when the people on whom it was committed have now became perpetrators of a Holocaust upon the Palestinian people, whom they see as non-human? All the intimidation that the Holocaust Industry has carried out through the years, all the name-calling of anti-Semitic this and anti-Semitic that, all the laws to protect the Jews—was it all a ploy to hide what has been and is going on in Israel since 1948?
Is the current Palestinian genocide the bitter fruit of this Holocaust Industry, because it has made us blind to Israel’s cruelty, because we are forever lost in the cruelty of yesteryears?
It would appear that the world is emerging from the “hold” that the earlier Holocaust has had upon the modern mind because it is seeing atrocities unimaginable today, carried out by the very hands that we imagined would be less cruel because of the memory of that earlier Holocaust. But no. We see the same dehumnaization, followed by the same gleeful mass murder.
The fact remains, Israeli soldiers enjoy killing Palestinians, especially children. No doubt there is the deep-seated Israeli logic of annihilating future “terrorists.”
More questions come to the fore.
What kind of martial culture exists in the Israeli army which encourages the shooting of little children?
What kind of spirit inhabits an Israeli soldier who aims carefully and sprays a 4-year-old girl on the road with machine gun fire, and then goes off to relax, having done a good day’s work?
How cold must the blood be to shoot a little boy sitting in his father’s car, and then go about with other duties?
Or is it that these Israeli soldiers do not see children, only the hated, non-human “Palestinians” who must utterly be destroyed, no matter what their age or sex?
And all the while, America sends more bombs, more bullets, as if to say, “Keep up the good work.”
“Israeli forces have installed Israeli military infrastructure, like checkpoints, all throughout the occupied West Bank. Palestinian children are at risk every time they are forced to interact with Israeli soldiers,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Israeli forces opened fire with no regard for Ruqaya’s life. This is just one example of the impunity enjoyed by Israeli forces emboldened in an environment where the international community refuses to hold them accountable” (Defense for Children International-Palestine).
“You guys are saying that this is a twelve-year old boy. Stop it. This is a twelve-year old terrorist” (Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli National Security Minister).
We are now sadly familiar with what the bombs have wrought in Gaza— 32,552 Palestinians killed, including 13,000 children, and 74,980 wounded. And counting…
What about the bullets dutifully supplied by the cargo-plane load? Since October 7, the US has sent 100 shipments of munitions to Israel.
Leaving aside what these bullets hit when fired at Hamas, this ammo is also used to kill children (not to mention unarmed men and women).
For example, on March 28, 2024, Israeli soldiers shot dead and then bulldozed into a pit full of garbage two Palestinian men who were stopped on a road and then shot. One of them was waving a white piece of fabric. They were just trying to go home on foot.
Here is a very brief and sad list of some of the many children killed by Israeli soldiers, brief because it is so very difficult to catalogue the slaughter of such beautiful little lives, as you are quickly overwhelmed by utter horror.
January 8, 2024, Ramallah, West Bank
Ruqaya Ahmad Odeh Jahalin, aged 4.
Her crime: She was sitting in the backseat of a taxi when she was shot. The IDF confiscated her body, for full investigation.
January 24, 2024. Al-Amal, west of Khan Younis
Nahedh Barbakh, aged 13.
His crime: He stepped outside his house, waving a white flag in order to evacuate as ordered by the IDF. He was shot three times and killed. His older brother, Ramez, aged 20, tried to rescue him but was also shot dead. The family could not recover their bodies because of intense gunfire. The family escaped by breaking through the rear wall of their home in order to avoid going out into the street. The bodies of their two sons were never recovered.
February 22, 2024, West Bank
Nihal Abu Ayash, aged 16.
His crime: He was heading off to play soccer. He was shot first in the leg and then when he got up, he was shot in the head.
December 5, 2023, Gaza City
Salma Jaber, aged 4.
Her crime: She and nher family were trying to escape. She and her nine-year old sister were sprayed with bullets from a tank. Though shot, little Salma bravely tried to run away. When her father picked her up, he too was shot in the arm. Her sister, though shot at, miraculously survived. Little Salma did not.
March 4, 2024. Burin, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank
Amr Mohamed Ghaleb Najjar, aged 10.
His crime: Sitting in his father’s car. Shot in the head by the IDF Israeli forces.
March 14, 2024. Shuafat Refugee Camp, Jerusalem
Rami Hamdan Al-Halhouli, aged 12.
His crime: He held up a lit piece of fireworks. Shot through the heart and his body was confiscated.
Will any of theese murderers in uniform ever be known, let alone brought to justice? Don’t hold your breath. The leaders of the world have long accepted the shooting of kids as Israel’s “right of defense.” Therefore, the slaughter will continue. America is happy to supply the bullets and the bombs to kill many, many more children, just like the few noted above. It’s good business, after all. This is “civilization” against “terrorism.”
Few remember this, but the Israeli soldiers have been shooting children for a very long time.
For example, twenty years ago, in May of 2004, in Rafah, little Rawan Abu Zeid, just 3 years old, was shot in the neck by a nameless IDF sniper. A further 22 children were also shot that day.
Palestinian children have been killed since 1948 in Israel.
What kind of a monstrous country is this place they call Israel? And why is it untouchable? Why are its crimes tolerated? Why can no one stop this cruel barbarity? Is killing Palestinian children not a big deal in this world? Whatever happened to the UN, the ICC, even the ICJ? What justifies their salaries, their existence as organized bodies when they have zero power to stop a little girl or boy being shot? How do these people justify what they do?
Israel, along with the entire Western political class, are now the real terrorists, who will kill without any qualms, who sleep very well at night, because they know that no one will stop them.
But we must also not despair, for that is defeat. We can start by not voting for war-pigs, no matter what party they belong to. Stop enabling these cowardly politicians who will do anything to line their pockets, especially start wars and kill innocents, because for them war is the really big business.
We must learn to emerge from the enchantment that party-politics and party-rivalry puts us all in. Stop being loyal to a party name. It is all a ruse to keep us common folk divided, while those we empower look after all their own “special interests.” Find your own way to defeat this political diabolism that has killed off so much of humanity and continues to do so, because we blindly keep voting.
Here is a report of the endless slaughter of children in Israel by their army of criminals. Next time you hear politicians trying to appeal to some “morality” of theirs, just shove this report in their face. They all have the blood of children on their hands. Stop empowering them, and all their ilk.
C.B. Forde writes from rural Canada.