How many more dead girls and boys will take before the killings stop? A sober melancholy spreads over the wasteland. They kill and they kill every hour of every day without reproach, rebuke or restriction.
A cry in the wilderness falls on dead ears. There is only silence.
A genocide is committed on the world stage, in the global spotlight, but there is darkness.
They proceed with their “final solution” without regard for the International Court of Justice, which faces Israel for its genocidal case of war crimes against civilians in the enclave. The deliberate act is met with more silence, neglect, and defiance.
Since October 2023, 56,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been massacred in the full glare of a civilised world of democracy, with no compassion or sorrow. Is there any pity for 35,000 dead children?
Unimaginable horrors struck down by the innocents, have become ordinary, as common as the slaughterhouse of butchers.
Who allowed the violations against the children? Who allowed the blockade of aid, the starvation, the destruction of hospitals, schools, homes, and water systems?
No hospitals, no medicine, no clean water — Gazans are not only bombed, they are starved, infected and untreated.
Children under 17 are taken from their homes at night, blind-folded and zip-tied, interrogated, beaten up, threatened, forced to sign, and confess in Hebrew, held under detention, without charges or recall.
Do they hear the screams of helpless children? Do they see the visions of horror, the ruthless killing of children running towards the Food Distribution Centre?
Are they not “protected from the devastating impacts of conflicts”, according to Article 38 of the Security Council? This shameful crime is not of the criminals but of the world who sees and hears, but sits in silence and comply. Are they waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu to finish his dirty deed, before they speak up?
Every lost child is a tragedy. Every human life is cherished regardless of race, colour or creed, unless they are not considered human as Netanyahu and Co believe.
We all wept at the tragedy of the flashfloods in Texas, killing 50 adults and 15 children to date. Fifteen girls enjoying their holidays at the summer camp of Texas Hill Creek were swept by the floods as they were sleeping. Texas mourned, the country mourned, all parents mourned. The first lady of the US sent condolences to the bereaved parents and the president expressed his sorrow for the lost childhood. Not a word, not a tear, not a sign for the 35,000 murdered children, yet. They are human too.
Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank aim at killing children under age 14, without warning, without investigation, not in a battle, not in a war but cold-blooded murder — just a bullet in the body in silence — a silence so deep it threatens to swallow justice of all existence.
The UN now confirmed that at least 100 children are killed or injured every day since the resumption of offensives in March, 2025. In 36 verified air strikes only women and children were found beneath the rubble. This is not war. This is a systematic eradication of Palestinian life. Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich (Smotrich is the name of a town in Ukraine) who speaks of “getting back his country”, said: “We have levelled Rafah, now we shall level Gaza, leaving it as piles of rubble.” They are probably trying to make way for their Middle East Riviera.
The simultaneous killing in Gaza and the West Bank finds reasons to the world such as “self-defence”, occasionally, the old standard “human shields”, and repeatedly, “Hamas” — all laughable excuses. It is much too late and too little to be angry — even outraged. When a few responsible leaders ask about the reason for the “death of innocence”, they mutter in hushed tones: “There are no innocents in Gaza.”
The highest number of child amputees in the world, per capita, are in Gaza, arrested under age 12, for stone-throwing. Tens of thousands of wounded children have no future.
They wage war against a generation of children with no legs, and they call it self-defence.
A brazen Netanyahu walks the corridors of Congress like a Colossus, with no remorse. Should he not be arrested by the Court of Justice, the ICC, the international community. Congress knows full well the heinous plans, yet they applaud as they spread the red carpet for the honourable guest.
The killing of a child should rupture the world, now they are counted as a number — no name, no voice, no human. The violence against the children is not new, but now it is intimate, personal, and intense.
Why suffer the harsh realities of existence, without regard for human suffering. Once we had pity for heartless men, now we pity the world from them. There is no safety, no security for the children, wandering alone, entirely alone, barefoot through the wreckage, from one grave to another.
Has Congress seen the appalling suffering? Is innocence dead forever?
We are reminded of “The Stolen Child”, a poem by W B Yeats in his passionate plea on behalf of the children, crying: “Come away O human child”, to a fantasy world, away from a cruel, heartless world: “For the world’s more full of weeping, than you can understand.”
Weep again for a human child. Its burden is wicked and sinful.
“O my brothers… They are weeping bitterly… In the country of the free.”
Elisabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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