Despite the occupation, Palestinian children try to enjoy their lives

By Yasser Al-Bana, IOL Correspondent

GAZA CITY, March 30 (IslamOnline.net) – Though they wake up to the sound of Israeli Apaches, the news of losing a beloved kin to an Israeli raid or the demolition of a nearby home by Israeli bulldozers, Palestinian children remain, nonetheless, "children" who dream of a better future.

There is a lot they have in common with other children; they want to play, go to school or be doctors. But similarities end there.

Palestinian children are born and leave under the yoke of an Israeli occupation that strips them off their childhood.

Psychologist Sana Abu Daka, the head of the psychology department in the Gaza-based Islamic University, said that despite all Palestinian children are future-oriented.

She ridiculed media allegations that most of Palestinian children want to carry out "martyrdom operations" against Israeli occupation forces, saying they have remarkably coped with the appalling conditions in occupied Palestine.

"Out children have their own dreams like all other children despite the daily sufferings at the hands of the occupation soldier," she told IslamOnline.net.

"All university and high schools students have gone through the first Intifada [1987-93] and have experienced the atrocities of the occupation. But they lead a normal life and have made extraordinary achievements."

"Few of our children might carry out armed attacks [on Israelis], but it’s only the backlash of their harsh reality," said the expert.

She exonerated parents and social institutions from such behavior, heaping the blame on "the occupation".

She continued: "What do you think about children who were orphaned and had their homes flattened and relatives arrested or injured [in an Israeli raid]?

"If you want our children to lead a normal life, they should live in peace away from killing and occupation."

Professor Abu Daka highlighted the key role played by rehabilitation organizations and psychologists, but lamented that their earnest efforts went awry due to the Israeli aggressions.

Abdel Raouf Barigh, the head of the Palestinian Child Parliament, said children seek to make friends with children worldwide.

He said children in the parliament, an NGO, have hosted visiting Americans despite their abhorrence of the U.S. policy.

"They loved Rachel Corrie," the 23-year-old American peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on March 16, 2003.

Palestinian children braved the incessant Israeli onslaughts to mark the first anniversary of Corrie’s death in the Rafah refugee camp on March 16.

Armed With Science

Palestinian children dream about a free and safe country

Yearning for the freedom breeze, Palestinian children see education as their sharpest weapon against the apocalyptic Israeli occupation.

Their prime goal remains the liberation of their motherland.

"I want to be a doctor in the future…My GPA is %97," 13-year-old Sawsan Amine boasts.

"We want to fight the [Israeli] enemy with our education. Education comes first and when we grow up we will resist [the occupation]…We mustn’t rush things."

Twelve-year-old Luai Khaled, from the West Bank city of Al-Khalil, agrees that "Palestine should be rebuilt by hard work and education."

"I want to live in a stable and free country," he said.

"Only education would save us from the Jews and America…For us children martyr operations should be put on the back burner."

Basem Shalov, 14, advises his colleagues to steer clear of Jewish settlements and Israeli checkpoints in order not avoid getting killed by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers.

Smear Campaign 

Palestinian children mark the first anniversary of Corrie’s death

Palestinian resistance factions vigorously denied claims that they encouraged children to carry out military operations in Israel, branding it a smear campaign against the relentless Palestinian resistance of occupation.

"Children are the most precious thing in our lives. It is beyond any stretch of imagination that we use them [in our operations]…They are the driving force for the days to come," Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam told IOL.

Saeed Siam, a Hamas leader, agreed, urging children not to act precipitately.

"No faction has ever enlisted a child," Siam said.

"Hamas as far it is concerned totally reject both the recruitment of children to carry out operations and their voluntary bids."

Israeli authorities claimed last week that they thwarted attempts by Palestinian children to carry out bombings at the orders of resistance factions.

Gideon Levy, columnist for Israel’s mass circulation daily Haaretz, slammed on Sunday, March 28, the Israeli claims as a "cheap attempt to win points on the international public relations front".

He said the world knows that "Israel's hands are not clean, that they are stained with the blood of children".

Palestinian families and factions dismissed the claim as an “Israeli intelligence fabrication”.

Israeli soldiers have killed 502 Palestinian children since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, according to a tally by the Palestinian Authority’s press office.

The number represents 18.5 percent of the total number of the Palestinians killed by the occupation forces during the same period.

Few children have voluntarily tried in vain to carry out operations against Israeli outposts, mainly Jewish settlements.

Last year, Israeli troops killed three boys aged 13, 14 and 16, claiming they tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the northern Gaza Strip.