No-one knows how many Palestinian children have died in Gaza since October 2023. Save the Children says at least one child has been killed every hour during the last 23 months, meaning at least twenty thousand girls and boys are dead. The UN estimates seventeen thousand, with more than thirty three thousand other children injured, or maimed for life.
But the truth is that no-one knows. Bombing has only intensified as Israeli forces push further into Gaza city to force civilians South and empty the city, though many Gazans are refusing to ‘run from death‘ and become displaced yet again. Please read on to hear the story of my fundraiser to support children in Gaza.
How do we even begin to process the shattering of Gaza, these thousands of unnecessary killings, and the toll on the children who have so far managed to survive? In my small town on the West coast of Scotland, a friend of mine called Anna has hung a washing line in an empty shop window – see the image above. Each of these tiny socks is pegged to the line, and each peg carries the name of a child in Gaza age three or under killed since October 2023.
This display was originally created by Mothers Against Genocide, who call themselves, ‘A group of grassroots families against the Gaza genocide’. In Oban, pedestrians pause, read the brief text, fall silent, because it is a simple, powerful representation of devastating loss.
Our community holds regular fundraising events to support Palestinian aid organisations working inside Gaza. At our recent supper in the community centre I spoke for a few minutes about my experiences of working in Gaza; I also talked briefly about living in Israel at a different time, and about my deeply-held conviction that we can hold several truths simultaneously in our hands.
The first truth; that the Hamas attack on Israel 23 months ago was a horrific crime that Israeli civilians did not deserve, that has traumatised Israel in ways most of us – and I certainly include myself here – cannot fully understand. Especially as Israeli hostages remain inside Gaza in horrific conditions.
The second truth; that the reaction of the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has been to unleash mass killing that has become a genocide against an entire people. This, after Gazans had already enduring almost two decades of a choking military siege that I saw for myself when I lived in Gaza city.
Palestine is not occupying Israel; a third truth is that the source of this iteration of the relentless violence between Israel and Palestine, at the cost of tens of thousands of civilin lives, is decades of military occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces. Until this is addressed, the region cannot see meaningful peace, only ever brief respite between erupting wars of occupation.
How can we respond to this current interation of war, the reality of children being blown up and buried alive every day? I can only speak for myself; I work with my friends here in Oban to raise funds to support NGOs in Gaza who are working to save lives. My new fundraiser supports the Aisha Association for Women and Child Protection; this long-established mental-health charity has set up food stations across central Gaza and is distributing tents and life-essentials to displaced families as well as psycholigical support programmes. If you click on this link, it will take you to the fundraiser page, with more details about the work of Aisha. Please give if you can.
A small number of severely injured Gazan children are now arriving in London, and just two are currently being treated in Scotland. This is a small, late symbolic gesture from our government, that has refused to challenge the Israeli government in any way that actually matters, reorting instead to symbolic gestures. Keir Starmer hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog in London just one week ago, days before he was named as inciting genocide by a UN Commission of Inquiry. To call our goverment’s actions insufficient does no justice to how out-of-sync Starmer’s Labour government is with most of us who voted them in, and now wonder why we bothered.
Whatever your view of Israel, or Palestine, civilians in both countries are paying for the crimes of Hamas and the Israeli government. None more than the few Israeli hostages still alive, languishing in Gaza tunnels, and two million Gazan civilians living through daily hell. As UNICEF Director Catherine Russell told the UN last week, ‘children are not political actors. they do not start conflicts and they are powerless to stop them….. [and] they wonder why the world has failed them’.
Please do everything you can to support Palestinians in Gaza, because my Gazan friends trapped there tell me day after day that our support is a slender but un-broken thread of hope that helps them just to keep going.
