Palestinian child sits by a wall riddled with shrapnel
Defense for Children International is an non-governmental organisation focused on promoting and protecting the human rights of children on a global, regional, national and local level. They've been around since 1979. They do great work in a lot of difficult environments. Please consider supporting them if you have the wherewithal. DCI's Palestine unit has been gathering data on the treatment of Palestinian children for years. They issued a very detailed report earlier this week titled Operation Protective Edge: A war waged on Gaza's Children. DCI-P have been on the ground in Gaza since last summer collecting data and building a database of children killed and maimed. The complete report makes for heart-rending reading. I've excerpted numerous segments that I found compelling:
In total, Operation Protective Edge claimed the lives of 2,220 Palestinians, including at least 1,492 civilians. Five Israeli civilians, including one child, and 67 Israeli soldiers also lost their lives.
Evidence and testimonies collected by DCIP showed that there was no safe place for children in Gaza during the Israeli assault. Children were killed in their homes by Israeli missiles, while sheltering in schools by high-explosive Israeli artillery shells, and in the streets by Israeli drone-fired missiles and artillery shells as they attempted to escape the onslaught with their families. Those who survived these attacks will continue to pay the price for many years. More than 1,000 children suffered injuries that rendered them permanently disabled, according to OCHA. Amputees like Mohammad Baroud, 12, who lost both his feet in an explosion that killed 11 of his neighbors, will require lifelong medical care and support.
Israel, the world’s largest exporter of aerial drones, killed at least 164 children in drone attacks during its assault on Gaza. In a number of incidents, evidence suggests that Israeli forces directly targeted children. In one such case, Rawya Joudeh, 40, and four of her five children were killed by an Israeli drone-fired missile as they played together in the family’s yard in Tal al-Zatar, Jabalia refugee camp, North Gaza, on the afternoon of August 24. The children were aged between 6 and 14. Just under half of the children who died during the offensive lost their lives in aerial attacks on residential buildings. Missiles dropped by Israeli warplanes killed 225 children while they were in their own homes or seeking shelter, often as they sat down to eat with their families, played, or slept.
Gideon Levy wrote last summer about the seeming indifference his countrymen exhibited towards the hundreds of children being killed by their army only a few dozen miles away.
Though the scale of the violence in 2014 far exceeded previous Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, the experiences of Palestinian children during the conflict were not new. Since 2000, a generation of children living in the OPT have been shot at, shelled and bombed. During this time, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,950 Palestinian children, the vast majority of whom were living in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces fired more than 36,000 artillery shells into Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. A former Israeli infantryman, Idan Barir, likened the use of artillery shells to “Russian Roulette,” stating “it is impossible to aim the shells in an accurate manner.” The effects of high-explosive artillery shells cannot be limited as required by international law and when fired in close proximity to civilians or civilian structures constitute an indiscriminate attack.
Natasha Roth over at +972mag wrote about the report: In war, there is no safe place for Gaza's children
There came a point early on during last summer’s Gaza war when it seemed we reached a nadir. Four children, all under the age of 12, were killed by an Israeli naval attack while playing soccer on a beach. The boys were directly struck by two shells, which also seriously wounded four other children. [...] One three-day period saw a child killed every hour. By the end of the war, an average of 11 children had been killed per day.
...the Israel Broadcast Authority and the Supreme Court banned a B’Tselem radio advert reading out the names of the children killed in the conflict. Nonetheless, a week after that day on which 59 children were killed, footage emerged of a crowd of right-wing Israelis chanting at a pro-war demonstration in Tel Aviv: “Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.” Somehow, they knew exactly what the army was doing in Gaza. And even if there was a majority in Israel that remained silent between its own fear and apathy, it is difficult not to recall the words of IDF Lt.-Col. Dov Yermiya, who during the 1982 Lebanon War decried “[t]his arrogant, cruel nation that dances at the edge of destruction.”
Much more, including data on what kind of weapon killed each child is below the fold.
— Cross-posted from NotMeUs.org | @subirgrewal
The report takes an in-depth look at the impact of the war on children and puts this in the context of events earlier in the year, prior bombings of Gaza and the military occupation of the West Bank. Interestingly, they tie the killing of two Palestinian children in the West Bank by IDF soldiers to the thread of events leading up to Protective Edge. From the report:
Events leading up to Operation Protective Edge In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the situation for children was deteriorating prior to Operation Protective Edge. Child fatalities and injuries significantly increased in 2014, mostly because Israeli forces used live ammunition against children. In May, Israeli forces fatally shot Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, and Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh Abu Daher, 16, with live ammunition near Ofer military prison in the West Bank town of Beitunia. Nadeem sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the chest, and Mohammad was shot in the back a few hours later. The fatal shootings were captured on video and prompted widespread criticism of Israeli forces. Forensic video and spatial analysis commissioned by DCIP identified the Israeli border police officer that shot and killed Nadeem. In June, Israeli authorities launched a military operation known as Operation Brother’s Keeper in the West Bank following the abduction of three Israeli settler teens - two were boys under age 18 - on June 12, 2014. The operation resulted in significantly increased numbers of Israeli forces throughout the West Bank,17 and effectively ended on July 2 after Israeli authorities discovered their bodies near Hebron on June 30. Use of excessive force by Israeli forces during the operation amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population. Israeli forces raided more than 2,200 homes and arrested over 600 people across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.18 The operation resulted in severe restrictions on freedom of movement and caused death and injury to Palestinians, including children. The increased presence of Israeli forces exacerbated an already tense environment, and sparked violent clashes between Palestinian residents and soldiers. Israeli forces killed nine Palestinian civilians during the search operation. An Israeli soldier fatally shot Mohammad Dudeen, 15, with live ammunition on June 20, when Israeli forces raided his home village of Dura, near the West Bank city of Hebron. Another five children sustained injuries in the same week in the context of the Israeli military operation. In an apparent revenge killing following the discovery of the three Israeli teens’ bodies on June 30, Israeli settlers abducted and murdered 16-year-old Mohammad Abu Khdeir in the early morning hours of July 2. According to Palestinian attorney general, Abdel-Ghani al-Awewy, the autopsy showed that Mohammad was burned alive.
Public opinion within Israel was particularly vengeful as it became clear the three teenage boys were unlikely to be found alive and after their bodies were discovered. As an example, a former Israeli lawmaker and member of the Knesset, Michael Ben-Ari, published a video on his Facebook page calling Palestinian children “little terrorists”, for the “transfer of pain to the cruel enemy”, to “make Ramadan into a month of darkness for them!” and “death to the enemy". Ben-Ari is the same former MK who recently posted a clip of IDF soldiers ordering their dog to attack a 16 year-old who was seriously injured. In his comments, Ben-Ari used the term "little terrorist" again. Hamas and other groups in Gaza fired mortars and missiles while the IDF launched air and drone strikes in an escalating cycle. Moshe Feiglin, a senior Likud MK and deputy-Speaker of the Knesset, called for a "conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters". David Sheen collected some particularly racist tweets from youngsters in a collection titled Terrifying Tweets of Pre-Army Israeli Teens as Protective Edge got underway. Senior members of the Israeli government have direct experience with the human cost of careless, mistaken or disproportionate actions by their army. Naftali Bennett, who is currently Minister of the Economy, has been accused of operational mistakes or carelessness that led to the killing of over a 100 civilians by his IDF unit in 1996 in the Lebanese town of Qana. His unit shelled a UN compound sheltering over 800 civilians. 4 UN peacekeepers were seriously wounded in the attack. Last summer, IDF forces struck UN schools and compounds multiple times. Back to the DCI-P report:
Incidents such as these are not unprecedented. Operation Protective Edge was the sixth Israeli military offensive on Gaza in the past eight years, and raised the number of children killed in assaults on Gaza to 1,097 since 2006. Between December 2008 and January 2009 Israeli forces killed at least 353 children, as well as a further 33 children in November 2012. Israeli armed forces have been regularly implicated in serious, systematic and institutionalized human rights violations against Palestinian children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Children affected by armed conflict are entitled to special respect and protections under international law, but Israel has consistently violated these protections through indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks that have resulted in large numbers of child fatalities and injuries.
While Israeli authorities have selectively opened their own investigations into several incidents occurring during the latest military offensive, previous experience has shown that Israeli authorities persistently fail to investigate alleged violations of its armed forces in accordance with international standards. The international community must demand an end to Israel's illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, investigate allegations of war crimes, and hold perpetrators accountable. Without an end to the current regime of collective punishment, targeted assassinations, and regular military offensives, the situation for Gaza’s children is all but guaranteed to further deteriorate.
The Gaza Strip is only 26 miles long and seven miles wide, but is home to 1.8 million people. Gaza City, the largest city in the OPT, is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. For every square mile, there are 42,600 people, as opposed to 15,500 in Tel Aviv and 15,100 in London. Around half of those living in the Gaza Strip are children under 18 years old, and densely populated residential neighborhoods are home to large numbers of children. Israeli attacks on residential areas and civilian structures during Operation Protective Edge resulted in high numbers of child fatalities. This raised critical concerns that Israeli forces committed war crimes, specifically disproportionate use of force and targeting of civilians and civilian structures, including residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and other structures protected under international law. The fatalities and injuries inflicted on children in Gaza in 2014 form part of a decade-long trend that has seen Israeli military force fall on those least able to bear it. DCIP’s evidence demonstrates that it is children who were disproportionately affected in recent Israeli military offensives, which have been characterized by force directed at government and civilian infrastructure, residential neighborhoods, and individual civilians. Table 1: Total Number of Children Killed in Israeli Military Offensives in Gaza since 2006
Name of Israeli military offensive |
Date |
Children Killed |
Operation Summer Rains |
June to September 2006 |
58 |
Operation Autumn Clouds |
November 2006 |
85 |
Operation Warm Winter |
February to March 2008 |
33 |
Operation Cast Lead |
December to January 2009 |
353 |
Operation Pillar of Defense |
November 2012 |
33 |
Operation Protective Edge |
July to August 2014 |
535 |
|
Total |
1097 |
Despite clear obligations under international law to protect the Palestinian civilian population under its control, Israeli forces have for decades committed widespread systematic and gross violations of international humanitarian and human rights law against Palestinians, including children. In 2004, the International Court of Justice found that both international humanitarian law and international human rights law applied in the OPT, and that Israel was obligated to implement the rights and protections found therein. The Israeli government and its armed forces must abide, at all times, by international humanitarian law as well as other human rights instruments that it has obliged itself to implement.
DCIP’s investigation into the killing and maiming of Palestinian children during Operation Protective Edge found overwhelming evidence of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks carried out by Israeli forces, which amount to war crimes. Under international humanitarian law, civilians, including children, must never be targeted, and civilian structures and infrastructure are presumed not to be lawful targets. Despite this, Israeli forces launched numerous unlawful attacks against civilians, civilian homes, and schools where there was no lawful military object reported in the area at the time of attack. Israeli forces killed 535 children in attacks during the assault on Gaza. Another 3,374 children sustained injuries in attacks during Operation Protective Edge, including over 1,000 children whose wounds rendered them permanently disabled. Nearly 68 percent of children killed by Israeli forces were 12 years old or younger. Table 2: Distribution of Child Fatalities during Operation Protective Edge according to Type of Attack
Type of Attack |
Children Killed |
Warplane airstrike |
225 |
Droned-fired missile |
164 |
Artillery or tank shelling |
81 |
Multiple types of munitions |
35 |
Apache helicopter-fired missile or rocket |
13 |
Surface-to-surface missile |
7 |
Accidents caused by indirect attacks |
5 |
Navy gunboat-fired missile/shell |
4 |
Live ammunition |
1 |
Total |
535 |
During the military offensive, Israeli officials attempted to justify attacks on civilian homes by stating that the intended target was an individual affiliated with Hamas or another Palestinian armed group present in the home at the time of the attack. Under International law, the mere alleged presence of a member of a Palestinian armed group is an insufficient justification for an attack on a family home. A civilian home that is in some way deemed by Israeli forces to be “affiliated” with Hamas or another Palestinian armed group does not provide in itself legal justification under international humanitarian law to direct an attack against that object.
To justify the onslaught on the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials asserted that Hamas and Palestinian armed groups used civilians as human shields. International law prohibits the use of civilians as human shields, which involves forcing civilians to directly assist in military operations or using them to shield a military object or troops from attack. The rhetoric voiced by Israeli officials regarding “human shields” during the military offensive amounted to nothing more than generalizations that fall short of the precise calculation required by international humanitarian law when determining whether something is actually a military object. Even if evidence existed that Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups did use civilians as human shields, this does not relieve Israel from its obligations under international law nor does it justify an attack on civilians or civilian structures. During Operation Protective Edge, Israeli forces dropped leaflets over certain areas warning of attacks, placed calls to individual mobile phones, and carried out “knock on roof” warnings with drone-fired missiles. The use of “knock on roof” warnings as an advance warning on civilian buildings or structures constitutes an unlawful attack. Civilian structures can only be lawful targets when used for military purposes. Advance warnings do not make an unlawful attack lawful, and armed forces and armed groups must ensure any attack conforms to the principles of distinction and proportionality even after an advance warning. Evidence collected by DCIP finds that, during the offensive, Israeli forces carried out both indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks amounting to war crimes under international law.