Nakba of the Children: How Israel is Targeting the Palestinian Future

A pregnant woman and her -year-old baby who died in an attack on a tent for displaced people in Khan Yunis Gaza Strip on March Photo Abdallah F S Alattar Anadolu via Getty Images Please don t put him in the fridge she reported He can t bear the cold Her voice cracked as she pleaded with medics not to place her -year-old son Omar in the morgue She had tried for nine years to have a child Then in the instant it takes an airstrike to crash into a building in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip he was gone We often hear that the genocide in Gaza that began in October has taken the lives of so multiple innocent people And though men in Gaza are also entitled to a presumption of innocence the killings of women over Palestinian women and children have been killed have demonstrated to the world how Israel is targeting not just Palestinians but also their future On May Palestinians mark Nakba Day a commemoration of their collective dispossession expulsion and displacement at the hands of the Zionist project and the state of Israel In current times more than ever it is obvious how this catastrophe is not just an event of the past in around the time of Israel s declaration of independence but rather an ongoing effort to destroy the Palestinian people This war after all is not just about death It is about making life impossible Palestinians are now forced to live give birth and bury their children in the same space This is especially visible in not just the attacks on children but also on women s access to reproductive care Maternity wards have been shut down neonatal care all but wiped out and literally embryos at a fertility clinic destroyed by the thousands UNICEF reports a percent increase in miscarriages Eight infants died of hypothermia in January of this year To destroy reproductive ceiling is to erase the future of a people Palestinians are now forced to live give birth and bury their children in the same space The all-out assault on children puts parents in a constant panic It s like an apocalypse one father disclosed You have to protect your children from insects from the heat There is no clean water no toilets and the bombing never stops You feel subhuman here That is the point Genocide is not just about bodies It is about condition The attack on the Palestinian future is part and parcel of Israel s assault It is part of the ongoing Nakba Don t believe me Just look at what Israel s Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter explained as the war was intensifying in its early days We are rolling out the Gaza Nakba Gaza Nakba That s how it ll end The Toll The specifics of the toll on women reproductive care and children are staggering When Gaza s healthcare ministry distributed a page document listing the names of proven Palestinian deaths the first pages were comprised of names where the age was listed is children under year old An average of mothers have been killed each day And for the last months Israel has killed an average of children per day The first pages were comprised of names where the age was listed is At least pregnant women remain without biological care Women are giving birth in rubble and tents without anesthesia Gaza s largest fertility clinic housing embryos was bombed to the ground Maternity wards were shelled Incubators shut down after fuel was cut off And then there are the unnecessary hysterectomies Doctors removing wombs to prevent infections when there are no antibiotics no equipment no clean tools Lives are saved by ending the ability to give life Article II of the Genocide Conventions defines one form of genocide as imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group Article of the Fourth Geneva Convention demands particular protection for expectant mothers while Articles and compel occupying powers to provide food and maintain biological services Israel is in flagrant violation of all of these The destruction of every hospital in Gaza capable of delivering babies was intentional a U N panel located in March that Israel was targeting wellness care infrastructure The human toll too is harrowing Dina Hani Eleiwa was nine months pregnant when white phosphorus was dropped near her shelter The expert communicated me the baby was not moving she commented He stated me it was already dead Related Famine Haunts the People of Gaza Israel Is Trying to Convince You It s Fake She was not alone According to the U N and human rights reports women across Gaza have suffered late-term miscarriages after exposure to phosphorus trauma and starvation Hadil Isma il Sbeihat eight months pregnant survives on a single daily plate of rice There s nothing for the baby she reported Not even water Destroying Survival If the intention of genocide is to destroy the conditions under which a group can survive then what is left to argue Gaza s clinical system has been collapsed Al-Shifa Hospital Nasser Hospital Al-Awda Hospital the Turkish Friendship Hospital the Kuwait Specialty Hospital bombed or raided Only of Gaza s hospitals are even partially functional as of December There s no safe place in Gaza one American nurse who volunteered with Doctors without Borders reported The legal architecture meant to protect these women and children is vast The Convention on the Rights of the Child which Israel ratified in requires states to ensure the survival and maturation of every child Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure and mandates the protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population Related Israel s Bloody Record of Bombing Schools in Gaza And yet Israel has bombed not only hospitals but also water towers bakeries schools and cemeteries The World Vitality Organization confirms that percent of pregnant and nursing women in Gaza face starvation Starvation became a weapon of war Since the start of Ramadan in March all aid convoys have been denied Over percent of Gaza s infrastructure lies in ruins Thirty-seven million tons of debris have replaced what were once homes clinics classrooms and kitchens Entire neighborhoods destroyed Hind Rajab was years old Her family s car was hit in Gaza City She was the only one who survived For hours she hid among the corpses They are all dead around me she reported I m so scared The ambulance sent to save her was shelled Her body was uncovered days later charred and lifeless Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza In the West Bank the machinery of elimination moves in different forms Children are executed at checkpoints Israel remains the only country in the world that systematically detains and tries minors in military courts Human Rights Watch has documented the torture of children in Israeli prisons In alone Israeli forces killed at least Palestinian children in the West Bank Palestinian women have dependably known what it means to raise life in the shadow of death In they were raped and exiled During the First Intifada they held down the resistance when the men were imprisoned Now in they boil leaves to feed their babies They breastfeed under bombardment Gaza is a womb being emptied It is a place where birth is a death sentence and motherhood is a target And the world watches as if Palestinian death were an abstract thing But Omar was not abstract Omar had a name Omar couldn t bear the cold The post Nakba of the Children How Israel is Targeting the Palestinian Future appeared first on The Intercept