At least 38 Palestinian children have been killed in attacks by Israeli security forces in the West Bank this year, the highest number on record, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Save the Children reported on Monday.
The organization detailed that “this horrible record” was reached earlier this month after the deaths of two 16-year-olds in two separate incidents, indicating that the figure is equivalent to more than one Palestinian child killed per week.
On the other hand, six Israeli minors have been murdered so far.
The NGO highlighted that this is the second year in which a record number of Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, reflecting the worsening security situation for children in the occupied Palestinian territories, at a time of increasing Palestinian-Israeli violence. .
Yousef, a boy interviewed last year by Save the Children, is among those killed this month, according to the organization, which recalled that the young man commented in 2022 that his dream was to “look at anything on the way to school, like birds.” and plants”.
“I want to see the things I’m always imagining. I don’t want to smell gas or see soldiers everywhere. I don’t want to be afraid to go out. I don’t want my mother to be afraid of getting hurt or walking the streets looking for me for fear that Israeli soldiers would have hurt me,” he said.
Save the Children highlighted that, in addition to these deaths in the West Bank, six children died in the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of fatalities to 44, one less than in the entire year 2022, when two Israeli children were killed.
The report specifies that five of the Palestinian children killed in 2023 were under 12 years old, while three were under 8 years old, with the youngest being a 2-year-old boy. In July, four children were killed during the Israeli military operation in the Jenin countryside, the largest since the end of the Second Intifada almost two decades ago.
Amina, a 15-year-old girl living in the camp during the operation, said that “from time to time” she sits in a room and cries.
“I cry for everything that happened to us. I dream every day about what happened. I don’t sleep until dawn, until it’s clear to me that they won’t come back for us,” he said.
Amina’s mother stressed that her daughters “are no longer the same.”
“My 7-year-old daughter refuses to leave the house alone and when she hears that the soldiers are arriving at the camp, she starts crying and wants to leave,” he described.
For all these reasons, the director of Save the Children for the occupied Palestinian territories, Jason Lee, denounced an “alarming trend.”
“We are once again facing the deadliest year in the West Bank, several months before the end of 2023,” he warned.
“This year has been marked by an unprecedented use of force and a record number of children killed in history. The murder and maiming of children must end,” Lee stressed, while the NGO highlighted the need to end immediate to excess violence. use of force by Israeli troops against Palestinian children.
Finally, the organization called for an independent and immediate investigation into the murder of children, as well as accountability, and maintained that, as long as the “culture of impunity” continues, cycles of violence will continue, causing children to ” continue to pay the price with your lives.”
Source: TSF
