[News] The Palestinian Children Killed by Israel in 2018 Have Been Forgotten by the World

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-palestinian-children-killed-by-israel-in-2018-have-been-forgotten-by-the-world/ 



  The Palestinian Children Killed by Israel in 2018 Have Been Forgotten
  by the World

January 9, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*By Ramona Wadi <http://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramona-wadi>*

Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) paints a bleak 
prospect for Palestinian children in revealing that in 2018, at least 56 
were killed 
<https://www.dci-palestine.org/year_in_review_2018_reigned_deadly_force_on_palestinian_children> 
by Israel. Individuals who witnessed some of the murders have insisted 
that the targeted children were unarmed and posed no threat to the state 
or its citizens.

Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli army snipers, drones 
and security forces across the occupied Palestinian territories. Five of 
the murdered children were under 12 years of age. In Gaza, 49 children 
were murdered by Israel in activities pertaining to the Great March of 
Return protests.

Live ammunition was used by Israel in 73 percent of the fatalities 
documented by DCIP, which also recorded “140 cases of Palestinian 
children who were detained by Palestinian forces.” Israeli forces also 
arrested 120 children within the occupied West Bank. In both groups, the 
detained children suffered abuse at the hands of the security forces 
holding them, whether the PA or the Israeli military.

These tactics show that Israel’s colonial collaboration with the 
Palestinian Authority is targeting a very vulnerable segment of 
Palestinian society. What’s more, the killing and wounding of 
Palestinian children by Israeli snipers at the Great March of Return is 
a direct maiming of the generation which can carry on the anti-colonial 
struggle.

Citing international law is pointless when Israel, and even the 
Palestinian Authority, have extended the parameters for an ongoing cycle 
of abuse against Palestinian children. International law is only 
relevant when used to point out that violations are taking place and the 
Palestinians are facing a UN member state which treats international law 
with contempt, while the international community gives its tacit 
agreement to the abuse and is, in some cases, complicit.

DCIP’s research establishes the fact that Israel killed an average of 
more than one child per week in 2018. Earlier shocking official 
statistics revealed that between 2000 and 2014 Israel killed a 
Palestinian child every three days on average, for fourteen years. 
Throughout the year there was ongoing discussion about Israel’s 
genocidal intent and actions which were mostly discarded due to the 
monopoly over the term in reference to the Holocaust. Yet, Article II 
<http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf> 
of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of 
Genocide defines the term as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, 
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” 
What else is Israel doing to the people of Palestine, “in whole or in part”?

The international community’s responses are so predictable that Israel 
finds no obstacles in maneuvering beyond the limits set by international 
law; it is allowed to act with impunity. The “drip, drip” rate of the 
killing of Palestinian children and the almost routine nature of their 
detention sneaks under the radar of human rights violations. As the 
international community fails to respond to Israeli violations within 
its established framework, Israel succeeds in bridging the gap between 
violations and rights.

To speak of Israel’s violations now is, in fact, also to speak of the 
international community’s irresponsibility. Yet neither are scrutinized 
and held to account; the result is the regular yet somewhat reluctant 
citing of what should happen according to international law being 
juxtaposed against Israeli breaches of the law. Accountability, however, 
has long since absconded from the scene of the crime. If Israel wants to 
kill Palestinian children (or women and men, come to that), it will kill 
because it has decided, quite deliberately, to do so.

Meanwhile, the international community will steer clear from ever 
associating Israeli actions with genocide, preferring instead to rely on 
“alleged war crimes”, the perpetrators of which will never be brought to 
justice. Palestinian children killed by Israel over many years, last 
year included, have been forgotten by the world.

/– Ramona Wadi is a staff writer for Middle East Monitor, where this 
article was originally published. She contributed this article to 
PalestineChronicle.com./

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