UMAR Abdurrahman
2018 has been “one of the bloodiest for Palestinian children”, according to leading human rights NGO Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP), with at least 53 confirmed child deaths “as the result of Israeli forces or settlers actions” documented by the organisation.
According to DCIP, the majority of these deaths were at the hands of Israeli occupation forces and caused by live ammunition, “often in the context of weekly protests and related activities taking place in the Gaza Strip”.
4-year-old Ahmad Yasser Sabri Abu Abed succumbed to his wounds four days after bullet fragments fired by soldiers at protesters struck him in the head, chest and abdomen on 11 December 2018. The child was in his father’s arms when he was hit. “Suddenly, I heard the sound of a gunshot fired by one of the soldiers and I heard the sound of something exploding in front of me,” said the child’s father. “At this moment, Ahmad screamed. I looked at Ahmad and found blood coming down from his right eye and chest and his shirt was torn.”
In addition, DCIP noted, since 3 November, Israeli forces have shot dead Abdel-Rahman Ali Ahmad Abu Jamal, 17, and likely killed a further child, Emad Khalil Ibrahim Shahin, also 17. On 21 November, Abdel-Rahman from the Jabal Mukaber neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, died from a serious live ammunition wound sustained the previous week, during what authorities alleged was an attack on Israeli police officers. Emad Shahin, 17, was shot by Israeli forces on 3 November, “while he was attempting to cut the perimeter fence in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip”. Israeli forces are withholding the body, according to the family.
For many Palestinians living under occupation, 2018 was a terrible year. The US moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and cut funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Violent Israeli repression included the killing of more than 200 unarmed Palestinian protestors in Gaza.
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad described 2018 as “a bad year” for his people and their national cause.
Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, spokesman on international affairs for the Palestinian faction Fatah, told Arab News that 2018 “was a very difficult year because of the ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian population under occupation, and US policies targeting refugees and Jerusalem."
Hamadeh Kamal, an activist who works with former prisoners in Gaza, told Arab News: “We don’t expect that next year will be either quiet or stable.” He added: “The occupiers want to push Gaza into war because Gazan blood has become the best election campaign fodder for the Israelis. The more they kill in Gaza, the more votes they’ll get” come 2019.
Mohammad Zahaika, a political analyst in Jerusalem, told Arab News: “There’s a feeling that things will worsen due in part to Israel’s extreme position, which will most likely reject even a pro-Israel deal (from the US) because the Israelis aren’t willing to give up a single inch of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.”
Samia Khoury, a Jerusalem-based author, said this has been one of the worst phases that Palestine has experienced since the occupation began, but the solution might be in finding an alternative to the Trump administration’s peace proposal, which is yet to be unveiled.
But “history has shown that the strong won’t stay strong forever, nor will the weak be weak forever,” he added.