[The Independent, UK, 29 March 2001]: The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has sunk to appalling new depths with several days of intensified violence that left children on both sides to form the bulk of the dead. Yesterday a Hamas suicide bomber killed two Jewish boys, aged 16 and 14, whose only offence was waiting for a bus to take them to school.

And a Palestinian boy of about 12 was killed in the south Gaza Strip. His crime was trying to play with an interesting-looking object. Tragically, the shell blew up in his face.

The day before, an 11-year-old Arab boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron. The day before that, 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass, the daughter of Jewish settlers, was shot through the head by a Palestinian gunman as she sat in her pushchair at the entrance to a Jewish enclave, also in Hebron.

These five children died in a three-day spell that has been shocking in its callous brutality, even by the numbing standards of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which has now entered its seventh month.

In Israel, the deaths of Jewish children played a key part in the build-up of public pressure on the new Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to retaliate against the Palestinians, and fulfil his election promise of providing the embattled and fearful country with security.

Last night he responded, launching a wave of helicopter and tank assaults on Palestinian police positions in the Gaza Strip. Five helicopter gunships lashed the headquarters of Yasser Arafat's élite bodyguard at Ramallah, and gunfire from Israeli ships struck around the Palestinian leader's office..

The death, maiming, and psychological wounds now being inflicted on youngsters is nothing new to this conflict. At the start of the intifada, the world was appalled by the television footage of the last terrifying moments of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durah as he crouched at his father's side in the Gaza Strip while bullets thumped into the wall behind him. Now international attention has wandered elsewhere, tuning in only when the sights are exceptionally horrifying.

Yesterday's bomb near Kfar Saba, on the 1967 Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank, fell into this category. A suicide bomber walked up to a group of youngsters and blew himself up. Apart from the two dead, three others, aged 12 to 15, were seriously injured. It was the third bomb against Israelis in 48 hours. Two in Jerusalem injured 30 people, including a two-year-old Israeli.

Both sides have shown no compunction in milking the deaths of children for propaganda value, brandishing them as evidence of the ruthless criminality of their opponents. From the start, the Palestinians have been lionising their dead youths, a task they performed so effectively in the case of Mohammed al-Durah that the Israeli army launched a long inquiry to try to prove it did not kill him ­ energy that would have been far better spent reforming the conduct of its soldiers in the field. Israeli troops routinely fire live ammunition or lethal rubber-coated steel ball-bearings into crowds who are attacking them with sling-shots, rocks and petrol bombs.

After the death this week of the 10-month-old baby in Hebron, the Israeli government feverishly circulated the little girl's picture to the world's press. The Ha'aretz newspaper said Israel's foreign ministry instructed its diplomats abroad to convince foreign opinion-makers that this was an example of the Palestinian "cynical and cruel" response to Israeli moves to ease the siege of the occupied territories. No mention, of course, was made of the Israeli army's massive contribution to the juvenile death list, or that the closure of the West Bank and Gaza has remained largely in force, and was even strengthened in some areas.

Yesterday, the Palestinians were trying to counter the widely felt revulsion at the little girl's death by accusing Israeli troops of killing the boy in Gaza by planting a booby trap, a charge denied by Israel. And so it goes on.

Yet the world has grown indifferent, despite the horrifying statistics that show more than 160 of the estimated 440 deaths during the intifada have been under 18 years old. Human and children's rights workers watch with horror and despair.

Yitzhak Kadman, director of Israel's National Council for the Child, responded to yesterday's events by renewing his call for mercy for the young. "Children are children, whatever side of the conflict they belong to. We call on all sides to, please, put the children out of the war game," he said. "They cannot protect themselves. They cannot be part of any fighting or any war. They are so easily endangered and at risk. Even if the two sides cannot agree on anything else, they should have one point in common ­ an agreement, written or oral, gentleman's or otherwise, to get the children out of the conflict. I know this is easier said than done, but this is a terrible situation into which we cannot and should not put our children."

The pro-Israel lobby has tirelessly churned out material saying Mr Arafat and his cronies must bear the primary responsibility for this. They claim the Palestinians deliberately place children in the front lines, where gunmen use them as human shields knowing they will be killed. The promoters of this convenient theory have had stunning success. They have convinced Conrad Black, the proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator magazine. They have also won over The Times's editorial writers. Both have trotted out these claims in recent weeks, though they are palpably untrue.

None of the several thousand foreign journalists and photographers, human rights workers or international diplomats working daily at the front lines have produced convincing evidence that Palestinian gunmen are systematically herding Arab children to the riot zones to be used as human shields.

The reality is much more complex. It is true that Palestinians have been firing at Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza from residential areas, angering the local Arab population, who justifiably argue that this endangers them. It is also undeniable that the Israeli army has forcibly taken over the rooftops of Arab houses and fires from them, placing the surrounding Palestinian residents at risk. The Palestinian media, especially the broadcasters, are guilty of incitement, glorifying those who have died in the battle for an end to Israeli occupation as religious martyrs. Yasser Arafat's fractured and incompetent security services have proved either unwilling or incapable of keeping youngsters out of the trouble spots.

But there have been very few reports of gunmen firing from crowds of rioters. By contrast, there is abundant first-hand evidence of Israeli soldiers opening fire without being shot at themselves, sometimes attacking children who present no threat. There is still no explanation for the conduct of Israeli troops, who have continued to fire on the stone-throwers, causing almost daily death and injury.

The military wing of Hamas, el-Din al-Qassam, says it has seven more suicide bombers ready to attack. If and when they do so, the world will doubtless recoil anew in horror at the sight of more dead and maimed civilians, especially if the victims are children. But until Israel brings its wayward army into line, efforts to claim the moral high ground will always be humbug

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/3/120.htm