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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:30 pm Post subject: What must it be like to be a child in Gaza? |
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According to latest reports, at least 195 children have now been killed in Gaza.
According to a report I read in October, 860 children had been killed by the IDF since 2000, the majority in Gaza.
Since that report, a couple of hundred more, and many hundreds wounded. Yesterday I learnt about a young child who had to have 3 limbs amputated. Children have been regularly wounded for 8 years now, and for two years there has been an embargo that has stopped many sick children receiving medical treatment, and seen many children go hungry much of their waking hours. A significant portion of Gazan children now suffer from stunted growth. Not only this, they suffer great psychological trauma. More than half the population of Gaza are children (800,000 children) and the average age of a Gazan is 17. So it's not surprising that 1/3 of the 600 reported dead are children.
These are children who can not flee Gaza. These are children who did not vote for Hamas. I do not believe this slaughter can be justified in anyway. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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Shell-shocked children who are drawn into the cult of the martyr
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The bombing, shelling and shooting will stop one day. The electricity and water will be restored. And the windows of the Mousa family's flat, every one of them blown out by Israeli air force strikes on the Palestinian president's palace next door, will be replaced.
But the trauma of the four Mousa children, aged three to nine years old, will not so easily be erased. For nearly two weeks now they have endured a constant barrage of shells from navy ships they can see through the plastic now covering the windows of their seafront flat in Gaza city, as well as the air force strikes on buildings nearby.
"The children scream and cry when there's shelling. It goes on all night," said their father, Raed, 35. "Every night, all night. The building shakes. We moved into the kitchen and sleep there. It's the safest place in the house. But my children are very scared, their faces turn yellow. The sound of the guns is very loud. We try to keep them busy playing and with their toys."
Their mother, Ahlan, is pregnant. "I look at them at night when they are sleeping and they are dreaming bad dreams. Safud [aged four] jumps from her bed screaming and crying," she said. "All the time they are shelling. It's terrifying. I don't know what to tell the children. I say the sound is loud but it is still far away. But I can see they are afraid and that makes me afraid."
That trauma may last a lifetime, with devastating consequences for Palestinian society, according to psychologists who have studied the impact of two decades of bloody conflict in the Gaza strip on children who have grown up under army watchtowers, dodging bullets, seeing classmates shot as they sat at the next desk, watching tanks and bulldozers destroy thousands of homes.
Even after the Israelis pulled Jewish settlers out of Gaza in 2005, children and their parents have had to endure regular rocket attacks and punishing sonic booms when Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over the territory. Now there is the bombing and fighting that has left more than 600 Palestinians dead in less than a fortnight.
Gaza's leading child psychiatrist, Dr Abdel Aziz Mousa Thabet, who has studied the effects of violence and trauma on children for 20 years, said about 65% of young people in the enclave suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"There are many other traumatic symptoms, like headaches and abdominal pain and vomiting. There's an inability to concentrate, panic, anxiety, irritability," he said. "I've observed much change in the children. They are more anxious, more fearful. Children are panicky because of the explosions. Children want to leave. You hear it. They feel there is no hope, that the world can't do anything for them and they can't do anything for themselves."
Thabet says the impact of trauma on older children combines with other experiences to push them to extremes.
The image of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old Gaza boy shot dead as his father vainly tried to protect him from Israeli gunfire at the beginning of the second intifada, is seared on the Palestinian consciousness. To many Palestinian adults it symbolises Israeli indifference to the lives of their children. But psychologists say that to many children its principal impact is to see a father who cannot protect his son.
With that - and humiliations such as Israeli soldiers beating Palestinian men in front of their children - has come a collapse in respect for the regular systems of authority.
The perpetual killing has also drawn many children into the cult of the "martyr" and led them to expect an early death.
Thabet said the traumatising of children was having a profound effect on Gaza's future. The children he studied in the early 1990s are now adults.
"They become fighters. I warned about this 15 years ago, that in 15 years these traumatised children will be more aggressive, they will want to fight, there will be more violence in the community. You saw it in the factional fighting in Gaza in 2007," he said.
"So now we will have another generation of more aggressive behaviour. They will go to more extremes because they have no future. This is a problem. I've been warning people of this but nobody was listening. It's a cycle of aggression.
"Children see their parents killed in front of them. What do you expect?" |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject: Re: What must it be like to be a child in Gaza? |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
These are children who can not flee Gaza. These are children who did not vote for Hamas. I do not believe this slaughter can be justified in anyway. |
We agree. Hamas' brutal exploitation of the Palestinians, like Hezbollah's forced stewardship over the Shi'a of Southern Lebanon, all encouraged ultimately by Iranian backers, is completely unacceptable. |
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rusty1983
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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| It would be the life of living in a small, shitty apartment with 5.6 siblings in a household with a yearly income of 600$ in a territory controlled by muslim fanatics (..see the first two problems..) who use you and your siblings school as a launching pad for rockets to your heavily armed neighbor to get them to kill you and your siblings so that leftists will cry about it. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Subjected to harsh Israeli power and raised by hate-filled adults at home, Big_Bird. Must be one of the most dysfunctional childhoods on the planet. |
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thiophene
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:07 pm Post subject: Re: What must it be like to be a child in Gaza? |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
These are children who can not flee Gaza. These are children who did not vote for Hamas. I do not believe this slaughter can be justified in anyway. |
We agree. Hamas' brutal exploitation of the Palestinians, like Hezbollah's forced stewardship over the Shi'a of Southern Lebanon, all encouraged ultimately by Iranian backers, is completely unacceptable. |
um, we're ignoring a bit of the other fuel sources... such as the settlements, the humiliation of their family, curfews, the taunting by the settlers, the disturbances of everyday life (halting aid, food, water, electricity, mass arrests, murders...), all of which is also unacceptable. If Isral would just stop its greed Hamas/Hezbollah/other freedom fighting organizations will slowly lose their power.
There was a fantastic documentary done by I think a Canadian, I think his name was Ari or Ariel something (edit: I think it's Avi). Young fella, maybe in his 30's. They were showing the lives of kids (maybe aged  on both sides of the border and how they preceived their 'enemies'. These groups of kids met each other, played, had a fantastic time. The reporter goes back years later (these kids are maybe 12ish) and asks them if they kept in touch and what they think of their old friends. Well boy have things changed. It was really sad to see that both sides had already collected a lot of angst against the other. I'd like to see it agian if anyone by any chance remembers the name. I think I saw it on CBC newsworld.
edit#2: ok I think it was by Avi Lewis but I cant find a link so I'm starting to think it was a report and not a doc. but anyways it was very interesting to see.
Last edited by thiophene on Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:25 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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wesharris
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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| What greed? Inherently Greed is human, and necessary to expansion. The Palestinians have lived off of Israel for years. I for one welcome the end of the welfare state known as Gaza. |
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sojourner1
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Location: Where meggi swim and 2 wheeled tractors go sput put chug alugg pug pug
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Scared shitless. Why can't they stop fighting over there? They just never come to an end to this conflict. |
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thiophene
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| wesharris wrote: |
| What greed? Inherently Greed is human, and necessary to expansion. The Palestinians have lived off of Israel for years. I for one welcome the end of the welfare state known as Gaza. |
greed may be human but that doesnt make it right. There comes a time when peopel should let go of the past. Many jews in Israel don't belong there. |
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wesharris
Joined: 10 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject: |
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All Jews in Israel belong there. They came, held, and have held against all aggressors. This makes it right simply by being good at what they do. Palestinians are actually Syrians truth be known. But Syria refused to take them back. Not Israels fault. And honestly, if Israel was greedy, and if I was in charge of Israel I would be. You'd see the Israeli Hegemony, centering around Israel extending into Egypt and Lybia Syria the Stans, down into Saudi Arabia, Yemen and possibly touching Turkey and Iran.
But luckily for the middle east . I'm not in charge.
-=-
Wes |
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thiophene
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| wesharris wrote: |
| All Jews in Israel belong there. |
It's this kind of twisted thinking that keeps this conflict going. If we could just set aside religion... |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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| sojourner1 wrote: |
| Why can't they stop fighting over there? |
Because the various space-gods in play won't allow it. |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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I saw a CNN report last night about the psychological problems that children, particularly children under five, can endure by being exposed to such an event.
It was heartbreaking. Eventually, they will start to associate loud noises with death and destruction, and they will live in a state of constant fear that they might never outgrow.
Bed-wetting, crying, and introversion are only a few of the results of childhood PTSD. It's sad. |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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| wesharris wrote: |
| What greed? Inherently Greed is human, and necessary to expansion. The Palestinians have lived off of Israel for years. I for one welcome the end of the welfare state known as Gaza. |
Wesharris is only a troll and everyone should just ignore his posts. |
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