Reham Alhelsi – What about the children of Palestine?
By Reham Alhelsi • May 16th, 2008 at 8:00 • Category: Children's Corner, Features, Human Rights, Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
While the children of Palestine face the atrocities of the Israeli military occupation, the children of Israel celebrate the on-going ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
Two days ago I was visiting a friend of mine and as we walked down the old city, we more than once came across Hebrew-speaking tourists, a language I would recognize immediately. I thought they are most probably Israeli tourists since it was holiday time there. There were two elderly women who were posing in front of the nearby river and taking photos of each other. They were laughing and speaking in a loud voice. I couldn’t help thinking about the elderly women in Palestine who have seen so much suffering on the hands of the Israeli occupiers, mothers who didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to their children before being carried to their final resting place or before being dragged and locked in a dirty prison cell. As my friend and I sat on a bench under the trees chatting and watching people coming and going, another of these tourist groups passed by and again I recognized their nationality from their language. This time it was a young family. The mother was trying to convince her teenager son to keep still and listen to the tour guide, but it was obvious the boy wasn’t interested and started protesting. I suppose a typical reaction for boys who just want to run loose. Again I couldn’t help thinking of Palestinian children. Sitting here on a bench in a European town, I wonder why is it that European and Israeli children have the right to live freely but Palestinian children aren’t allowed to enjoy that right? We had no part in the holocaust or any of the atrocities committed during WWII, and beside the fact that children are not to be punished for the crimes of their parents, why is it that Palestinian children have to pay for the crimes committed by others?
Do the Israelis know that while their children are allowed to travel all over the world, Palestinian children have sometimes to wait for hours at a checkpoint before they are allowed to reach their schools? Do they know that sick Palestinian children need permits from the Israeli military so they can reach hospitals and get the urgently needed and in many cases life-saving treatment? Did they ever hear of the many children who died because the Israeli occupation forces refused to give them the needed permits and thus weren’t allowed to leave Gaza to get treatment?
In the course of decades of Israeli military occupation, Palestinian children have been subjected to all forms of physical and mental violence caused by the occupation. They have often been on the receiving end since they are the weakest of the occupied population and thus the easiest to intimidate. Schools have often been closed, besieged, shot at and even bombarded. One of the earliest memories I have of the Israeli occupation is when I was a little child staying at my grandparents house in Dheisheh refugee camp. It was land day (Yawm il Ard) and pupils went to the streets to commemorate the day and to demonstrate against land grab and confiscation. No one was at home except my younger sister and my grandmother. When we heard the sound of gunshots, my grandmother told us to close all windows and hide under the bed and wait for her to come back. She wanted to go and see what was going on and if people needed help, which is a typical reaction I witnessed often as I grew up. People stand together and when something happens they all rush to assist in any way possible. My sister and I swept under the bed and tried to close our ears to the sound of bullets that was filling the place. We could hear people shouting, chanting, and cars driving fast and jeep sirens. Then we heard a sound of something crash. It was inside the house. I remember going to check and found that a teargas bomb had broken the bathroom window and entered the house. The house was filled with suffocating gas within seconds. We had already been taught that the most effective way against tear gas is onions. We ran to the kitchen and grabbed some onions and ran back under the bed. I remember how unique the smell was, how I felt my throat was being cut by several knives, how I found it difficult to breath, not to mention the burning in the eyes and the tears. I don’t know how long we stayed there but sometime later my father came to take us back home. As we went down the main street heading to the car, I remember a sight I often saw later in TV reports on war zones. The main Jerusalem-Hebron street running in front of the refugee camp was foggy, either from the burning tires or the many teargas bombs thrown, and the only thing visible in this foggy scene was the many Israeli soldiers and Israeli military jeeps blocking the road. Bullets were flying everywhere around us and I remember my father holding my hand in one of his and my sister’s hand in the other and urging us to run quicker. I remember looking at his face and seeing the worry and how every time a bullet was shot, he would lower his head, and as the car drove away, I looked from the back window and watched as the war zone, with the fully armed soldiers running like crazy chickens, slowly faded till it wasn’t in sight anymore. On that day a little schoolboy was shot in the back while fleeing the area, a cowardly act by an Israeli soldier. That "war" was between little school kids demonstrating against the atrocities of the occupation armed only with stones and their belief in freedom and Israeli soldiers armed with sophisticated killing machinery.
During the first Intifada, it happened that a Palestinian schoolboy from Dheisheh was killed by a sniper, the next day another school boy was killed and on the third day a schoolgirl. I don’t remember the exact details, but I do remember hearing people saying it was the same sniper who was located with his patrol on the roof of one of the camp houses. People said that he wore a helmet on which was written: born to kill! I don’t know if the sniper was ever questioned about his crimes or ever brought before court, most probably not, but some time later, I was going to my aunt’s house as an Israeli patrol came by and I remember looking at the soldiers as I passed by them and noticing that one of them wore a helmet with born to kill written on it. If it was the same soldier or not, I don’t know, but I know that in that moment I felt cold and thought: this is how Nazi soldiers must have looked like. At home we had a collection of Soviet literature which depicted the Red Army and its fight to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany and often Nazi soldiers were described as being tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, and that Israeli soldier with the "born to kill" on his helmet was living image of these Nazi soldiers.
The culture of killing the most innocent, i.e., children, isn’t new to the Israeli state. On the contrary, they either claim it was a mistake – one that is so often repeated – or that it is the fault of the others, never theirs. It is either the Palestinian factions who, according to the Israeli military, tell children to go to the streets and get killed, as if Palestinian children live in an invisible bubble and aren’t aware or affected by the situation they live in and need to be forced to go and express their anger. Or it is the fault of the parents who send their kids to the streets, as if Palestinian parents anxiously await the birth of their children, take care of them, try to offer them the best possible life in an impossible situation so in the end they can just send them to the street to get killed! Or better still, it is the fault of the children themselves, throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and endangering their lives. The Israelis often talk about incitement and how Palestine children are taught to hate. One of their regular statements used as an excuse for killing children, but as usual it is an empty statement, since a child can never pose a threat to an Israeli soldier equipped with weapons from head to toe. As for the alleged incitement, no one needs to tell children about the brutality of the Israeli occupier, because they witness that first hand in their daily lives on a daily basis. It begins with each morning, if one is lucky enough to wake up and still find the roof in its place and not hit by an Israeli missile. You say your goodbyes to your parents before going to school, looking at their faces and trying to keep these images engraved in your memory because you don’t know if you will see them again. At school, you sit at your desk and wonder if a shell will hit the roof any minute or if a bullet will come flying through the window. At checkpoints you see how people are being humiliated, maybe your father, your uncle, your teacher and try to look away so not to see the humiliation in their eyes and hope that the man or woman arguing with the soldiers would stop soon before the situation escalates and ends up in one of the soldiers shooting someone and later claiming he shot the person in self defense. And again, you are lucky if you make it safe back home without being arrested or killed at one of the checkpoints and hope that you will survive the night.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child states:
Article 2 (2): States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.
Article 24: States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health.
Article 28: States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity.
Article 37 (a): No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.
According to the Defence for children international / Palestine section: between September 28, 2000 and May 3, 2008 962 Palestinian children were killed and 327 are detained in Israeli jails. (http://www.dci-pal.org./english/home.cfm
Between September 28 2000 and July 2006 more than 68 pregnant Palestinian women had to give birth at Israeli checkpoints, leading to 34 miscarriages and the deaths of four women. (http://imemc.org/article/47767
According to Passia: "During the ongoing Intifada Palestinian education has suffered from Israeli practices. Israeli soldiers have occupied, broken into and temporarily closed down hundreds of Palestinian schools. Since Sept. 2000, at least 185 schools have been targeted by Israeli shelling, which left 11 schools completely destroyed. (Palestine Monitor, Intifada Fact Sheet, as of Nov. 2002) http://www.passia.org/
Reham Alhelsi is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian. She has worked extensively in the Palestinian Broadcasting Company and since 2000, when she moved to Germany, has trained at various radio and TV networks including Deutsche Welle, SWR and WDR. She is currently writing her PhD in Regional Planning with a focus on Palestinian Land Management and local government.
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More on The Children of Palestine and How the 'Most Moral Army' Treats Them
While on my fifth trip through the occupied West Bank in 2007, I attended some of Sabeel's 2nd International Conference: 40 Years in the Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation…but specifically went to learn about the lives of children in the Holy Land to report to the non-profit PCWF/Palestinian Children's Welfare Fund, http://www.pcwf.org/
….After introductions were made Dr. M and I sat in the Bethlehem Peace Center with Dr. M who told me, "This is my first Sabeel conference. I have been busy attending Al Quds University in Abu Dis. Without checkpoints I could get there in twenty minutes. Four and five years ago, it would take four hours, and sometimes I was not even allowed through the checkpoint. Nowadays, I wait 10-30 minutes to get through.
Dr. M trained in public and private hospitals in Ramallah, Hebron, Jerusalem, Nablus and Bethlehem and will soon begin another internship specializing in neonatal care. "They will pay me about $100.00 a month…I have been in school for six years.
"…One horrible case was a baby from Jericho who was referred to a hospital in Jerusalem because their local hospital could not admit them due to the strike, so he needed to get to Jerusalem for treatment, but the permission did not arrive for three days and the babies elevated bilirubin caused permanent brain damage. Because of the USA and EU sanctions for the election of Hamas, no salaries were paid and that led to the strikes in the hospitals. Full monthly salaries have just been paid for the first time since the 2006 elections. Only the emergency rooms were always open and only for severe emergencies with minimal admissions to the hospitals.
"…In Jerusalem there is available advanced care for more complicated cases then we can treat in the West Bank. But, the permission for the patient to go there usually takes three days to a week. Most common for the children is upper respiratory infections secondary to the poor sanitation, crowded conditions and lots of people smoke inside the homes. It's illegal to smoke in the hospital for visitors, but they still do. I have seen many cases of neonatal sepsis and respiratory tract infections; and lower respiratory tract infections are the more serious. Smoking is an important risk factor for reactive airway disease and asthma. Other common problems in children in the West Bank are iron deficiency anemia, dehydration and malnutrition.
"Full term infants are usually in the normal range of weight and length, but many premature infants are born with many problems that become chronic. In the emergency rooms there is always a pediatric resident available as pediatric cases are significantly higher than any other age group."
I asked Dr. M if he could connect me with any other physicians to tell me more, and as is typical of Palestinian hospitality and graciousness towards the stranger, he immediately made a phone call that led me to my next interview.
In a private West Bank pediatric hospital, Dr. Rafat-Allawi, of Bethlehem and four General Practice residents spoke to me for the forty-five minutes that was their break time in a 116 hour week that required them to be on call at forty hour stretches. The residents are paid $1, 400.00 a month, twice what physicians are paid in the public government hospitals.
Dr. Zafer Al-Qaisi, is from Jerusalem, Dr. Mohammad Abu Yousef and Dr. Sufyan Amro are both from Hebron and the lone female, Dr. Ninn Hafiri is from Beit Jala.
Dr. Yousef: "Three days ago, I had a critical cardiac patient that required transport to Israeli hospital, as we do not have the facilities or specialists here to treat critical cases. I had to apply for a permit; permission to travel with the child in the ambulance to Jerusalem, but was refused as the Israelis claimed I was a security risk; a threat to the state of Israel."
Dr. Amro: "Yes, a threat with his stethoscope! I had a patient that was one week old with severe heart disease and needed to go to Jerusalem for emergency care. The mother, a paramedic and I traveled with the baby in the ambulance. At the checkpoint, the Israeli soldier; a female laughed and told the mother in broken Arabic, 'You cannot pass through until you admit you are a prostitute.' The mother did not understand what she was saying and why the soldiers were laughing and joking as her baby was blue, but she said what the soldier demanded and we finally were let through. I do not know what happened with that baby and this harassment at the checkpoints is not unusual. At the checkpoints it is usual to wait 3-4 hours and because Palestinian ambulances are not allowed through, we must hire Israeli ambulances for transport. They charge 1,800 shekels [ 450.00 USA dollars] and the parents cannot even make that much money in a month of work."
Dr. Allawi: "The other alternative from going to Jerusalem [a few miles away] is to take the children to Jordan for care, but that trip can take two days. Before the intifada, we were able to go to Jerusalem, but not since. Yesterday, I had a child in renal failure and there is no pediatric dialysis available in the West Bank. It took over twelve hours to locate a hospital in Israel to take him, but it was too late and he is dead."
Dr. Amro: "There are no specialists in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority pays 80 million a year to Jordan and [Israeli] Hadassah hospitals for medical care. They could build hospitals in the West Bank and train specialists here!"
I asked did any of them have any faith in Tony Blair and the Quartet's initiative to build Palestinian infrastructures, especially in the medical field. They all laughed and Dr. Allawi added, "We have a very weak Health Ministry and there is no state authority. In 1994, when the PA started, its aim was that Palestine would assume authority and responsibility for ourselves and the Israelis present a false front."
When I commented that under International Law the occupiers are responsible for the needs and requirements of the occupied, the doctors laughed again, for it is the law of the jungle that rules the Holy Land.
Dr. Amro: "It's a revolving door in the West Bank. We treat these babies as best we can, the parents don't have the money to pay for the medicine and milk and the babies return to the hospital every ten days."
Dr. Al-Qaisi: "We see lots of children with chronic metabolic disorders and there is no money to treat them properly. They should be on special milk for at least six months; we send them home with one bottle and a week's worth of milk costs 230 shekels that the parents do not have, so they eat potatoes and tomatoes and come back here."
The doctors see over one hundred children a day and admit a quarter of them. In the public hospitals in places like Hebron, the physicians will see five-hundred a day and admit a fourth of them also.
Dr. Al-Qaisi: "When we [resident doctors] graduate, we can't find work in the West Bank; you graduate as a GP and you stay that way because there are no facilities to train in specialties."
Dr. Amro: "The US Aid, the Fulbright Society; they all give food, drugs and money, but don't support further education."
Dr. Hafiri: "We need specialists here; this is a major disaster not having any in the West Bank."
Dr. Amro: "The politicians live in a bubble. We live in the third world, and this is a heaven hospital, the government hospitals in the West Bank are hell! If we need blood for a child, we have to get it from Jerusalem and it takes five hours! So, we are supposed to predict six hours ahead, which child will require blood [stat: immediately]."
Dr. Allawi: "There is no plan, no aim to really change this situation. The world leaders are not serious about changing the situation and really building foundations. Some of us get the opportunity to go to the US and get specialized training, but they don't come back here."
But, Dr. Al-Qaisi is the exception to that rule.
After the meeting, he offered me a ride back to Jerusalem in his 'classic' 18 year old Peugeot. He had come in on his day off and was on his way home after stopping at his brother's store to pick up some eggs. When he pulled back out into the congested streets, he rear ended a taxi van and dented it slightly. After a few words with the owner of the cab and apology, we were on our way; no insurance info was exchanged and no cop was called; for in Palestine, the people give each other a break.
Dr. Al-Qaisi pulled out his USA citizenship and told me, "In 2004, I won a green card lottery. The USA grants 55,000 green cards a year and if you pass the security checks and all the other criteria, you can get American citizenship. I went to Toledo, Ohio for a while, but I came back home, because my family is the most important thing to me. I don't care about making a lot of money, I want to be with my family."
The most haunting memories of my five trips to Palestine all concern the children who only know Israelis through the barrel of a gun.
Another story I just retold about mothers and sons in Bethlehem and Israeli prisons is part of WAWA Blog May 12, 2008: The Church of the Nativity in the Little Town of Bethlehem: Today, 2007 and 2002…
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory" and the soon to be released "BOOM BOOM BENNY STORY"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
A conversation between two hearts
♥ Joy?! What is joy?
• It is that feeling
When you start jumping
Up and down?
It is that feeling
When you are beating
As fast as you can!
♥ Aha… I know,
But, that to me
Is fear and terror
When f16's are shelling
Every house in town
I start jumping
Like a mad clown!
Is this really joy?
• No… no
Joy is that feeling
When you are going
To meet,
Some dear one
You love
As if you're flying
In the clouds
Up above!
♥ Aha… I know,
But this is to me
So sad and painful
For I can't stop
The tears flooding down
Looking at my father
Behind the prison bars!
Unable to touch him
Or even kiss him goodbye!
Is this really joy?
• No… no
Joy is what you get
When you really want
Just to stop all time
Wishing that
The hand of the clock
Never ticks, nor tocks
Freezing that moment
Forever and ever!
♥ Aha… I know
But, this is to me
Horror and beyond
When soldiers come dashing
Knocking at the door
Crashing and smashing
Mixing rice, flour and oil
Looking for my brother
Who just turned thirteen
Is this really joy?
• No… no
Joy is so warm
Like,
When you're wrapped up
In your cozy bed
In a soft blanket
With your cuddly toy!
♥ Aha… I know
But, this is what I get
When they start bombing
The late night shelling
I feel hot and sweaty
Hiding under my bed
Scared and terrified
Is that really joy?
• No… no
Joy is so sweet
Like chocolate and candy floss
When you start eating
You can never stop
♥ Aha… but I don’t know
What is chocolate
And what is candy floss?
I guess I'll never know
What is joy
For I am only
The heart
Of a Palestinian boy.
wow… what an amazing poem, Nahida!