“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded (in Gaza). They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed - this is beyond warfare.”
These harrowing images, which reach our screens daily from the streets of Gaza and now Rafah, have led to an incorrigible jolting of the moral conscience of millions of people globally. Israel has decimated the boundaries of international humanitarian laws, and women and children have paid the highest price.
In January this year, UN Women released a publication “Gender Alert: The Gendered Impact of the Crisis in Gaza”, addressing the unprecedented targeting of civilian life by Israel over the preceding three months. The report found that around 70% of people killed in Gaza by Israel are estimated to be women and children, including two mothers per hour killed since the beginning of the crisis.
Two mothers per hour and a child every ten minutes - these “fancy” statistics aim to create a comprehensible understanding of the scale of the Israeli destruction but what does it actually mean?- it means that we have failed the people of Gaza. UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous defined this failure when she said, “We have seen once more that women and children are the first victims of conflict…the generational trauma inflicted on the Palestinian people over these…days and counting, will haunt all of us for generations to come”.
Whilst all eyes are on Gaza and many see this conflict as having started on October 7th, the brutal occupation of Palestinian land and civilian suffering at the hands of Israel has spanned 75 long years. Organisations such as Save the Children, Defense for Children International (DCI) and The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs have been tracking the arrest and detention of Palestinian children in Israeli jails for years.
Testimonies and first-hand accounts document that the practice of detaining children was a long-standing human rights concern. Israel does not release numbers of detainees in its military system and is the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts. Save the Children, who has been present in Israel/Palestine since 1953, released a report last year July - during arrest, 42% of children were injured and 65% were arrested during the night.
The majority of children experienced appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86%). 60% of children experienced solitary confinement and 70% said they suffered from hunger. The commonest crime documented as being committed by these children was “rock-throwing” against the Israeli Defence Forces. With Palestinian children frequently being the target of Israel’s Apartheid-like policies, it can only be imagined what the toll on their mothers has been.
Emerging evidence of “mass graves” in Gaza in recent weeks only serves to build the case further of the inhumanity with which Israel is operating. The recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste” at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al-Shifa Hospital in the north make it difficult for one to sleep with ease. I recall seeing one of the images from the emergency workers who uncovered these graves- baby hand ties were pointed out.
I came across another video of a Palestinian mother desperately rummaging through rubble, looking for any signs of her children still being alive- her screams of agony not any less haunting from tens of other videos showing similar scenes. My mum and I found it difficult to celebrate Mother’s Day this year, knowing acutely what our counterparts in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories are encountering- challenging evil and not allowing Israel to continue its impunity of wanton destruction and death is an obligation for all of us.
Dr Aayesha Soni is a specialist neurologist and medical volunteer with the Gift of the Givers.
