RAFAH,
Gaza Strip, October 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Around 200
Palestinian children demonstrated in this southern Gaza Strip town
Sunday, October 20, in protest against the increasing number of children
killed by the Israeli army in recent weeks.
The
youthful demonstrators carried an empty child-size coffin painted with
the slogans "Arab silence," U.S. weapons," and
"Sharon is a criminal killing children," and burned photos of
U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
At
least seven children have been killed by the Israeli army in the Gaza
Strip in the past two weeks and dozens wounded, mainly in Rafah, where
the army makes frequent raids.
The
Israeli occupation army Thursday, October 17, killed eight Palestinians,
when it blasted two houses in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah with
shells and heavy machine-gun fire.
Among
the dead were a four-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, two young men
and two elderly women, Palestinian medical sources said, while a dozen
others were seriously hurt.
Israeli
army spokeswoman Captain Sharon Feingold claimed the Israeli force had
come under fire from "anti-tank missiles."
On
Monday, July 22, a U.S.-built Israeli F-16 warplane dropped a one-ton
bomb on a building in densely-populated Gaza City, killing 17 civilians,
eleven of them children, as well as its target for assassination, Salah
Shehada, the military chief of the Palestinian Islamic resistance group
Hamas, and his bodyguard.
Israel
came in for massive international criticism after the attack, as
condemnation calls came from Arab countries, E.U., Russia, China and
Malaysia. Even the United States, which rarely criticizes Israel,
labeled that attack as “heavy-handed”.
Meanwhile,
the Israeli rights group B'Tselem said in a report published Wednesday,
October 16, that the Israeli army has killed 15 Palestinian civilians
who violated the imposed curfew in West Bank cities reoccupied since
June, and 12 of the murdered were children.
"In
many cases [Israeli] soldiers fire live ammunition at civilians who are
outside their homes during curfew. Over the past four months, soldiers
have killed 15 Palestinian civilians in these circumstances. Twelve of
the dead were under the age of sixteen," B'Tselem said.
The
youngest of those killed was six, the oldest 60.
The
rights group said the army had for four months imposed a full curfew on
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, calling the
lockdown "unprecedented in scope and length ... and constituting
collective punishment, in contravention of international law."
The
group, which investigates rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian
territories, accused Israeli soldiers of often using tear gas against
civilians "both to notify the residents of imposition of curfew and
to punish residents who were ostensibly violating curfew."
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Palestinian boys burn a picture of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during a demonstration
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International
aid groups and Palestinians have slammed the Israeli occupation army for
not making clear when the curfew is being lifted and re-imposed, and for
frequently changing the announced curfew times.
B'Tselem
called on the army to end the curfews, cease using tear gas and
investigate incidents in which soldiers fire at Palestinian civilians.
The
report cited the killing of four Palestinians, aged six, eight, nine and
60, in Jenin on June 21, when a large number of Palestinians went out to
the market in the northern West Bank town thinking the curfew had been
lifted.
"They
went to the market to buy food. A tank that had been in the area drove
towards them and fired two shells and opened machine-gun fire. The
shooting killed four Palestinians, three of them children," the
report said.
On
September 19, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy was also shot dead in the
West Bank town of Ramallah by an Israeli army vehicle.
Recently,
a UNICEF official said Wednesday, October 2, that hundreds of thousands
of Palestinian children can not attend their regular schools because of
Israeli army incursions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Right
now the Israeli military is preventing thousands of Palestinian children
and teachers from attending school,” said Pierre Poupard, the
representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the
Palestinian territories.
UNICEF
said in a statement that more than 226,000 children and more than 9,300
teachers are “unable to reach their regular classrooms” and at least
580 schools have been closed because of curfews, closures and other
measures.
UNICEF
said that Israel as an occupying power has an obligation to ensure
education is accessible to every Palestinian child, in line with the 4th
Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“As
an absolute minimum, mobility restrictions on Palestinian civilians must
be lifted throughout [the occupied Palestinian territories] during
school hours,” it said.
Almost
one million Palestinian children are of school age.
