The Miraculous Children Of Gaza Upon Whom Israel Is Waging War Of Starvation (image@UNRWA)
Children in Gaza pity the world bereft of humanity. As they were forced to eat potato peels, animal feeds and ‘dead pigeons and donkeys’ to keep themselves from dying, they say “shame on you”. Palestinian children say they are hungry, they have nothing to eat. And yet, despite being in the most miserable situation that mankind can ever push them into, they are obstinate in their belief that “Indeed, God is sufficient”.
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Talking to Al Jazeera Arabic, a Palestinian child said “we are the children of Palestine, we matured prematurely”. He said, Palestinian children grow with pain and not by passing of years. He asked the world what will be status of his mental health after watching three wars at this young age.
If not by bombing, Gazans are dying out of hunger. Israel is using starvation as a method to further crackdown the already distressed population. Media report suggest that deliveries of human aid to Gaza has dropped 50 percentage in February while compared with January. Despite the International court of justice directed Israel to do everything to prevent the genocidal acts, and to take “immediate and effective measures” for providing aids, Palestinians say, “nothing changed”.
Two-month old baby in Gaza died out of malnutrition and hunger. Mohammed Fattouh was malnourished because he was not able to eat for several days. Though his parents had taken him to hospital, he could not be saved.
His mother asked, “where do I go with my child? There is nothing to eat.”. They took him to hospital with his body cold. But it was too late, as reported by Al Jazeera.
Two and half-year-old baby in Gaza died of poisoning from a bread his family managed to get after 100 days. Khaled’s grandmother said his lips turned blue after they fed him a piece of bread they managed to find. She said the older children vomited what they ate and recovered from the poisoning. But the baby couldn’t be saved, even though they took him to hospital. While giving one last embrace to her beloved grandchild, she said she wished they did not feed him the bread. The grandmother said they survive by eating barely and animal feed like the animals.
Al Jazeera reported that the displaced Palestinians at the Farmer’s School in Gaza City are forced to eat horse meat to satisfy their hunger.
UN has warned about an “explosion” in child death in Gaza. Due to the perilous starvation caused by the Israeli occupation force, mothers in Gaza are giving their infants dates to suck for easing their hunger. The mothers in Gaza care too hungry and malnourished to breastfeed their children and they can’t find baby formula in the war battered Strip.
Over 2.3 million people of Gaza are undergoing forced famine. Especially the Palestinians in northern Gaza. UN says 1 in every 6 children under two in Gaza are acutely malnourished.
A distraught father shouts angrily that he is wishing for the death of his son, so that he “can’t ask me for a loaf of bread”. Palestinians has turned to animal feed since they ran out of flour and rice. Palestinians grind the animal feed to make bread. 10-year-old Ali says he gets diarrhoea upon eating food made of animal feed. He said he is “tired” of eating it as it hurts his stomach and throat. TRT World reported that children in Gaza are resorting to potato peel to keep themselves alive.
In November last year, the Defence for Children International-Palestine, an NGO said that Israeli force has killed twice as many Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in October as the total number of Palestinian children killed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza combined since 1967.
Christopher Lockyear, head of Doctors Without Borders told the United Nations Security Council that the “psychological injuries have led children as young as five to tell us that they prefer to die”.
However, the Palestinian children have miraculously undeterred courage to call a spade a spade and face the reality. They bear the trademark quality of the Palestinians to make anything out of nothing. They do not sit back and wait. Children of Gaza sell whatever they can to feed their family.
In an interview by Middle East Eye, an eight-year-old Palestinian boy risks his life to collect Swiss chard close to Israeli border. He said he sell them so that he can feed his father and siblings.
Two orphaned teens named Nagham and Mohammed is looking after their seven siblings. The 14, and 15 year-old teens are struggling to look after their siblings, with youngest one below one-year-old.
The passion to live and valour to give everything they have to protect their homeland in the Palestinian children are phenomenal. Their faith in their God is tenacious. Despite the thumping anger, frustration, and loss they feel, they thank their God. They are not ready to leave their beloved land. They say, they would rather die as martyrs in the Palestinian soil than be humiliated by other countries.
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Palestinian children are brave, upon hearing the sound of shelling, a young child in Palestine was heard as saying “it’s just a bomb”. She said she is not afraid of the bombing and that she believes that the resistance group of her land will protect her.
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They are eloquent. A child studying in third grade can call out Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden for their ‘cowardice’. They challenge the occupation force to come fight with them face to face, and not to hide behind big tanker and bombs.
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It will not be wrong to say that Palestinian children are the bravest being in today’s world.
