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PALESTINE CHILDREN DYING ONE BY ONE - 07 October 2004

Kremlin floats amnesty for Chechen rebels, new social measures - AFP - 28.09.2004

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PALESTINE CHILDREN DYING ONE BY ONE - 07 October 2004

As the world children are enjoying their childhood with all ways possible, Palestinian children are being killed, living under poverty and humiliated behind the Israeli jail bars.

 

Palestinian children are born and live under the oppression of the Israeli occupation that deprives them of their childhood. They have their own dreams like all other children despite the daily anguish they suffer at the hands of the Israeli soldiers.

 

“As a Palestinian, I want to represent all the Palestinian teenagers’ views, specially children who suffer much from the violation of our rights by the Israeli soldiers”, said Raghda 14, “in everywhere in Palestine our rights are violated, are entirely violated. We don’t have any rights. We cannot cross the way to go to our schools. We don’t have the right to travel from one place to another.

 

“We want to see our relatives. We suffer. Always there are martyrs, there are killed people from both sides”, she added, “How can our lives as teenagers and our dreams be connected only with bloodshed with violations, with killing.

 

Unlike the rest of the children of the world, Palestinian children have no place to play freely and safely. They only can, if possible, play near a neighboring Jewish settlement, or a mid the rubble of the demolished refugee camps.

 

Raghda voiced out that her, and the other children’s nights are difficult. They are always sleepless. Their only thoughts are about the flying Israeli warplanes. “We want to see cartoons, want to see some kind of funny serial”, Raghda hoped.

 

Occupation has stolen every right belongs to children. It has stolen the right to live, the right to play, the right love and the right to education.

Ashraf 15 expressed his fears while going to school. He fears being killed by one of the always on the fly Israeli copters.

 

“All children in the world enjoy their human rights, but the Palestinians are deprived from any kind of these rights” Ashraf revealed, “as for me when I’m coming to school, I feel afraid because of the aircraft of the Israelis. And now we see in the cities the Israelis are killing the children and the children cannot to schools”.

 

 Guiltless innocent Palestinian children have been unjustifiably and cold bloodily killed by Israeli relentless teenager soldiers.

 

Palestinian Ministry of Health official revealed “ since the second Intifada, the total number of martyrs increased. About 22% of the martyrs are children aged less than 18 years old” she said “ during the last six days, more than 85 persons are killed in Jabalia and north Gaza goveronate. From this total number, about 25 persons are children aged less than 17 years old”.

 

Most of these children were killed and injured while going to school, playing, or even being at their houses.

 

Most of them saw the demolition of their houses, the arrest of their fathers and the bombing of their schools. Israeli occupation, with all its pictures, has become a daily reality. The occupation bullets deprived many of them of dear fathers, mothers, relatives and friends.

Even the safe place areas provided and sponsored by the UNICEF, which were the only outlet for those impoverished children, have been recently destroyed by the Israeli war bulldozers.

Roadblocks and the separation wall being built in the west bank and Jerusalem separated them from their schools, while poverty forced others leave schools to support their hard-up family members.

Children suffering in refugee camps and rundown houses are much luckier than those who live in the Israeli cells and prisons. Palestinian Prisoners' Society said in its latest statistical report that since the outbreak of the Intifada, Israeli troops arrested 2500 children, of whom 465 are in Israeli prisons, including 25 who were administratively detained, 283 have not subjected to trials and 157 children who are already sentenced to several imprisonments.

 

While nearly every child in the world enjoys a roof over his head, Israeli occupation made some 6200 Palestinian children homeless and other thousands live under poverty.

 

Israeli Occupation and its restrictive policies also pushed thousands of Palestinian children into streets to work as street peddlers and day laborers or as checkpoints porters 

 

Palestinian official statistics reported that thousands of children in the Occupied Territories currently live below the poverty line. In total, 1,321,000 Palestinian children have been forced to suffer deprivation by the occupation.

 

Mohammed 13, was forced to work and to leave his school since he was only 10. The bad financial conditions led him to work to support his large family, where no one to support.

 

“Since the onset of the Intifada, my father has become jobless, I left school and turned to work in a workshop”, Mohammed said, “ I go to work at six o’clock in the morning and leave at 8 o’clock in the evening. I always dreamt to be an engineer or a doctor”.

 

According to Palestinian center for human rights, about 100,000 children work in the occupied Palestinian territories because of the nearly dead Palestinian economy.

 

“Palestinian official estimation says 100,000 work in the occupied Palestinian territories which violates human rights standards especially the international covenant on children rights”, Khalil Shahin, Palestinian human rights’ official stated. 

 

Omar 12, determined to support his family, but he also determined that he wouldn’t leave school, because education is a weapon can be used against the occupation. After he finishes his school day, Omar marches most of Gaza streets, selling the he has on his cart.

 

“As my father lost his job in Israel, I decided to help him in supporting my family. I go to sell bread after I finish my school. I could not play as my friends. Even my friends sometimes cannot play because of the Israeli shelling or because they r injured”, Omar said in anguish.

   

This is how some 1.5 million Palestinian children are leading their lives. They suffer the Israeli daily killing, shelling and inhuman practices. Had it not been for the Israeli occupation and its humiliating measures, these children would have been leading happy peaceful lives with their families and enjoying their rights that nobody can provide them with yet.

 

By Ahmed Dabba

 

Cameraman Mohamed Abdul Alhay



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   Kremlin floats amnesty for Chechen rebels, new social measures   
 
MOSCOW, Sept 28 (AFP) - A top Kremlin official called Tuesday for a wide amnesty for imprisoned Chechen rebels and for "powerful" new social policies to stabilize the war-torn republic and the volatile north Caucasus in general.
"I don't understand the idea of an amnesty for those who don't have blood on their hands -- they all have blood on their hands," said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition he not be named.     But "you need to know how to pardon those who have committed serious crimes. There will be plenty of bastards who continue in their cause. But there will also be those who return to normal life," he said.
In June 2003, Russia gave amnesty to certain categories of Chechen rebel prisoners, but with little visible effect. Those involved in kidnappings, attacks or "doing harm to the life" of a Russian security officer were exempt.
"We need to eliminate the mad dogs who can't be talked to but reconcile with those who hesitate and integrate them into normal life," the official said.
He rejected what he described as merely "formal" socio-economic plans, saying they led to embezzlement and "a level of corruption beyond the comprehension" of most.
Instead, he said, "we need a powerful policy of socialization for Chechnya and the entire North Caucasus.
"We managed it in the Soviet Union. Most of the population was integrated in a normal life. There were policies for youth, employment, the education system," he said, adding that these were now totally neglected in the region.
Russian troops fought a war in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996. They pulled out, only to return three years later in what the Kremlin called an "anti-terrorist operation" that has degenerated into a steady guerrilla war.
"The generation educated in the Soviet Union. There are fighters among them, but these are people bound to Russia, who speak Russian and who were educated by a great country in the framework of a normal civilization.
"We are losing one generation after another," the official said.
For young Chechens who have known only war, rebel fighters "are surrounded by an aura of romanticism.
"We are losing not just Chechnya as a subject of the federation but also the Chechen people," the official said.
neo-cb/yad/ga
 AFP 281410 GMT SEP 04
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