St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Excessive force, murdered children
This story was published in Editorial on Thursday, July 25, 2002.

By Adam Hanieh

MIDEAST

Israel's bombing of an apartment building in a residential area of the Gaza Strip as its inhabitants were sleeping is a horrific crime. The bombs -- carried by U.S.-made F-16 warplanes -- hit the building at around midnight on July 22 killing 14 people including nine children, the youngest aged 2 months.

This attack cannot be explained as a "tragic accident." It cannot be excused as another result of "senseless, escalating violence." It is quite simply the deliberate and conscious targeting of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli government. There can be no other explanation for bombing an apartment building that housed several families in a residential area.

Palestinian, Israeli and international child rights organizations have been noting for some time the escalating attacks against Palestinian children. The latest killing of the nine children brings the total number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers in the first seven months of this year to 117. This is the largest number of Palestinian children killed in any year since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

Moreover, trends over the past few years indicate that the proportion of younger children being killed is increasing at a dramatic rate. Nearly half of the Palestinian children killed this year were under the age of 12. Thirty five of the children killed this year were under 8 years of age.

The killing of the children in Gaza confirms another indisputable fact: The vast majority of children killed by the Israeli army -- 84 percent this year -- were killed in circumstances where there were no clashes or confrontations occurring. This indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Israeli myth that children are dying because they are caught in "crossfire" is absolutely false.

The question that must be posed at this time is simply: How can this happen? The deaths of these children provide a very clear answer to this question. Israel can act with impunity against a civilian population because it has the green light to do so from the international community. The bombing of an apartment building in a residential area by F-16 warplanes as the inhabitants were sleeping is shocking confirmation of this fact. The international community not only sits in silence as Israel commits war crimes, but provides it with the material and moral means to attack Palestinian civilians.

The Palestinian population is rapidly losing faith in the international community. Concepts such as human rights, child rights and international law lack all legitimacy when the only result is an empty litany of verbal condemnations.

In May of this year the international community was faced with a significant test. Following the attack on Jenin Refugee Camp, a wide range of organizations including Human Rights Watch called for an international investigation. The United Nations seemed poised to take on this initiative but at the last minute it backed off, bowing to U.S. and Israeli pressure. The U.N.'s failure to carry out its responsibilities gave a clear message to Tel Aviv: Do as you wish; we may condemn, but we will not interfere.

The international community is now faced with another test. If it had passed the first, then very possibly that building in the Gaza Strip would still be standing and those 14 people would still be alive.

COMMENTARY\A FORUM FOR OTHER VOICES, IDEAS AND OPINIONS\Adam Hanieh is the research and international advocacy coordinator for Defence for Children International/Palestine Section, a non-government organization based in Ramallah.

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