Even 3-year-olds are valid military targets (so long as they are not Israeli)

Here are more examples of the deliberate murder of Palestinian children by members of the Israeli Defence Force.

The first took place on October 5th 2004 in the Gaza strip. Imam Al-Hamas was a 13-year-old girl on her way to school, wearing a school uniform and carrying her books in a back pack. As she passed an Israeli observation post, she was fired on. A transcript of radio traffic between the observation post, the local commander, and the operations room is as follows:

Observation post: "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward."

Ops room: "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"

Observation post: "A girl of about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."

[shots fired at Imam]

Observation post: "I think that one of the positions took her out."

Local commander: "I and another soldier are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill. [pause] Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."

Local commander: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."

Links to coverage of this event:

Washington Post
Mindfully.org

The next event is undated. It is an eyewitness account by Chris Hedges, a reporter for the New York Times, recounted during an interview with National Public Radio:

"....over the loudspeaker from an Israeli army Jeep on the other side of the electric fence they were taunting these kids. And these kids started to throw rocks. And most of these kids were 10, 11, 12 years old. And, first of all, the rocks were the size of a fist. They were being hurled towards a Jeep that was armor-plated. I doubt they could even hit the Jeep. And then I watched the soldiers open fire. And it was - I mean, I've seen kids shot in Sarajevo. I mean, snipers would shoot kids in Sarajevo. I've seen death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I'd never seen soldiers bait or taunt kids like this and then shoot them for sport. It was--I just--even now, I find it almost inconceivable. And I went back every day, and every day it was the same".

Read a transcript of the interview at Palestine Media watch or listen to the interview at National Public Radio (fast forward 24 minutes into the programme).

The third incident in this blog entry occured in January of this year (2006). 9-year-old Aya al-Astal was killed by Israeli soldiers while wandering close to a fence separating Gaza Strip from Israel. For the full article, visit the Australian Broadcasting Company web site.

I could go on, but the list of child casualties amongst Palestinians is endless and continuing. Your Government wherever you are needs to act to prevent these needless deaths, and curb the Israeli genocidal programme. I can't do that for you - you, the reader needs to bring these facts to light with your local government representative.

Joe McGonagle