Lifting the Curse from Gaza's Kids

This isn't going to be easy reading. It's The Independent's account of what it means to be a child living today in Gaza:

"It doesn’t take an air strike, or a telephoned warning that Israeli bombers are on the way, to terrify the war-weary children of Gaza. Heightened surveillance is enough to cause nightmares. Lasers glow red in the night like the eyes of wild beasts. An enemy spy drone, like a pale fish-shaped balloon, hovers high overhead to eavesdrop and snap photos. Heaps of fresh rubble cast weird shadows. And sonic booms – louder than a crack of thunder – trigger dread whenever F-16 fighter jets fly low.

"In Gaza’s grim conditions, mothers find it hard to tell if their offspring are crying out of fright, pain or misery. But when normally bickering brats fall silent, it’s the first sign of mental scars from being constantly scared.

“Dozens of children in every school show clear signs of trauma,” said Hosam Sheikh Youssef, a seasoned social worker leading a workshop for professional counsellors in Rafah, southern Gaza. “We must treat thousands of cases.”

"The Welfare Association, one of three charities supported by the Independent’s 2006 Christmas Appeal, runs community psycho-social outreach programmes that help Palestinian families cope with the relentless conflict in the Gaza Strip. They are not allowed to flee to safety in exile because the Israelis usually seal the borders, and social collapse is a genuine risk.

“You can tell the children who need help,” said Mawahib Ali Muhdi, a teacher a teacher attending the Rafah training course. “Some jump at the slightest noise, whether it’s a helicopter lifting off or a dropped knife. Others become slow learners. They tune out and lose focus, as if they do not want to feel anymore. And if these children ever sense that their teachers are even a little afraid, they start to scream.”



"No sane child can remain unaffected by the mayhem of Gaza Strip. Playmates frequently are killed or maimed: at last count, Israeli guns had slain 88 Gazan children and wounded another 343 since mid- June, about one quarter of the total casualties of the back to back Israeli offensives. And women – mostly mothers or grandmothers – accounted for at least 29 of the civilian deaths and 108 injuries. Factional feuds and inter-clan battles felled a dozen more Palestinians in the crossfire.

"The densely-packed enclave is, in effect, the world’s largest prison. One third of the 1.4m people already live in cramped refugee camps. Chronic shortages caused by international boycotts against the democratically-elected Hamas government left tens of thousands of trapped families to deal with thirst and hunger. There’s not much comfort eating from empty cupboards. And they drink from contaminated taps.

"After months of indiscriminate Israeli bombing and shelling, thousands of Gazan families have been forced to abandon destroyed flats. Some unlucky ones were even compelled to quarter enemy Israeli soldiers in their own homes and lock their own kin away in a single basement room."

The Israelis and the Palestinians have been unable, unwilling to settle their differences for the better part of half a century. The barbarity goes on and adds fuel to the many other fires that blaze across the Middle East.

The West created Israel, it's time for the West to intervene. We need to impose a just solution and that means forcing the parties to accept a return to Israel's pre-1967 borders. That means forcing both parties. No negotiation, no fiddling.

To pull this off will take a large peacekeeping force, adequate to effectively separate the two sides, and that force will be needed probably for decades, at least one and perhaps even two generations. It will also require the West to commit a vast amount of aid to Palestinian reconstruction and rehabilitation.

We can do so much more lasting good in Gaza and the Occupied Territories - good for both sides - than we can ever dream of achieving in places such as Afghanistan.

Argue the fine points to your heart's content, we cannot allow another generation of children to grow up in the nightmare of the world's biggest prison.