A video I shared on IG received over 100,000 views in just a few hours. In this video, I expose how Israel has been targeting civilians, specifically children, throughout its history of occupation. I also explain the reasons behind these actions. It's important to bring awareness to the state terrorism carried out by Israel, with the support of many governments and media outlets. Let's work towards condemning these crimes and holding the perpetrators accountable. Thank you for watching and sharing the video.
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@SaraYafi - Sara El-Yafi
Happy to report that this video garnered more than 100,000 views within the first couple of hours on IG.
Over the last 111 days, since October 7, IsrƦl has consistently denied targeting civilians. Well, in this video, I am going to show you that in the history of its occupation, not only does IsrƦl actively target civilians, but they specifically target children.
More importantly, I explain why they do it.
We all have been collectively forced to observe the core of unmitigated and unbounded state terrorism carried out by IsrƦl, shielded by the sponsorship of the wide majority of the Global North, their governments, and their media. The institutionalized IsrƦli policies that involve the actions of killing, maiming, abducting, abusing, jailing, and r@p!ng children has yet to be brought to the forefront of Western consciousness.
I hope this video helps create said consciousness.
Thank you for interacting with and sharing this video widely; thank you for working towards a world where such crimes are not only morally condemned but also carry tangible penalties.
Onwards.
PS: Thank you to @Patrick_Baz for the inspiration and the permission to share his extraordinary photos
Video Transcript AI Summary
This video discusses the Israeli policy of targeting and killing Palestinian children. It presents photographs and videos as evidence of this policy, showing instances where children were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. The video also highlights other forms of abuse, such as torture and imprisonment, that Palestinian children endure at the hands of Israeli forces. It argues that this policy is supported by the international community's lack of accountability for Israel's actions. The video concludes by calling for Israel to be held responsible for its crimes and for the occupation to end.
Speaker 0: Please take a moment to examine this photograph for 1 minute. I invite you to meditate on every face. Let's engage in an in-depth analysis as if we were art critics. In the mid ground on the right, a soldier aims his M4 carbine at the child in blue running away in the foreground. He's about to shoot him.
To the shooting soldier's side, another soldier is loading his M4 Carbine to shoot at what looks like the other children. The out of focus boy in gray on the right appears as though he's about to grab the boy in the ice green sweater who seems to be frozen in fear so they can run. The boy in the navy sweater standing closest to the soldiers is the only boy whose torso is turned towards the soldiers. And it looks like he's gesturing with his bare hand To the soldiers, not to shoot. In the background, a man by the truck is looking with a side eye at the situation.
His face looks worried, but his posture remains unperturbed to maintaining a detached demeanor despite the situation. His livelihood most probably relies on delivering daily vegetables before the strict military curfew, and another child getting killed would disrupt that. A passerby on the sidewalk to the right glances back at the scene, much like how you and I might react to a noisy motorbike passing us by. These boys are between 8 10 years old. They are dressed in denim pants and cotton sweaters, and they're about to get shot at like defenseless lands by hypermilitarized soldiers.
This photograph was captured by my friend, Patrick Buzz, On November 26, 1993 in Gaza, during his tenure as a photojournalist, These are Palestinian children, and these are Israeli soldiers. And this is a glimpse into daily life in occupied Palestine. This is more than 30 years ago, but this never stopped. Let's examine another one of Patrick's photos. A child's bike in the foreground is on the floor.
It could be a playful scene in another world, but in this world, Whoever was riding this bike probably got off of it to run for their life from these hyper militarized soldiers. I know the backstory of this photograph because Patrick shared it with me. In the image, these soldiers are chasing and shooting at children who are throwing stones. But this time, they're shooting at them using m16 assault rifles. Look at the child in the red sweater in the foreground.
She's a little girl running away, carrying her backpack, coming back from school. She's the one who certifies to us that the soldiers are actually shooting, and not just aiming their assault rifles with threats because she is covering her ears. In the back, a group of old men sitting on the sidewalk observe the situation. They surely know that they're helpless. But the mid ground scene is key.
The mid ground scene holds the narrative's intensity. A little boy hiding behind a tree. He is making himself even smaller than he already is. Peering from behind the tree at the other soldiers from whom he is hiding. In another world not too far away from this place, Children also hide behind trees, but they do so when playing hide and seek.
In occupied Palestine, Children hide behind trees seeking shelter from soldiers, wielding M16 assault rifles on duty to actively hunt them down. This was March 1993. This picture won the prestigious POYI, picture of the year international award in the spot news category that year. Also taken by my friend, Patrick Buzz. This And this is a policy called shoot to kill.
And I want to talk to you about this long standing policy As I will show you how the Israeli state consistently targets children and has has and has historically always targeted children on purpose. While more than 9,000 children have been killed in record time by Israel's aerial bombardments in Gaza since October 7, leaving even the organization, Save the Children at a loss for words. When they famously said in December, We are running out of words to describe the horrors unfolding for Gaza's children. Israel has pushed back many times claiming it is not targeting civilians. Well, I'm going to show you that in the history of Israel's occupation, not only do they actively target civilians, but they specifically target children.
So let's begin. Remember, these are photos from 30 years ago of Israeli soldiers shooting little children. But fast forward 30 years. These videos are from last month in the West Bank. Watch.
Speaker 1: This is the moment the 8 year old was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. His brother, Baha, drags his limp body into cover behind a car.
Speaker 0: This was an 8 year old child named Adam Raul shot and killed by the Israeli army at point blank just last 29th November during The Israeli daily killing raids in Jenin. The boy dragging Adam's limp body into cover Behind a car leaving a trail of blood is his brother, Baha, who was still exposed to the shooting, but survived. Adam, the killed who was killed Was 8 years old. Okay? 8.
This is another video from the same day of a 15 year old child named Basil Abulwafah, who was also shot and killed by the Israeli army. Specifically, it was by a convoy moving 50 meters away who was leaving the city of Jenin. Maybe they wanted to get a couple more child kills on their way out to make their quota.
Speaker 1: His friend, 15 year old Basil, has also been shot dead close by.
Speaker 0: These were caught on camera. Most others were not. This is 12 year old Eicham El Shafi'i shot and killed by the Israeli army for no reason on November 2nd as he was standing by. This is 13 year old Hamdan Hamdan, who was shot in the back of the head and killed by Israeli soldiers while while he was sitting in the back seat of a car driven by his dad. Why?
Why not? Rokhaya Ahmad, 4 years old, shot and killed while sitting in the back seat of a shared taxi van. An Israeli military ambulance took and her mother to a checkpoint after they shot her dead where her father met them. Israeli forces interrogated Rokhaya's father before allowing him to leave without releasing Rokhaya's body. Youssef Saldad, 11 years old, Shot and killed by Israeli soldiers from a US sourced Apache attack helicopter.
Imagine what they're using Apache helicopters for, To kill 11 year olds. Ahmed Rabier, 12 years old, shot in the waist and killed. He was just standing by. Martas Mansour, 14 years old, shot in the chest, killed for no reason. Sharif Eshayr, 16 years old, shot in the back and killed also for no reason.
More than 65 children were killed by the Israeli army just in the past 3 months alone in the West Bank. These are not mistakes. These are not soldiers gone rogue. This is a policy. This is a policy called shoot to kill.
The Human Rights Watch exposed Israel's shoot to kill policy. This is a paper from 2017. In In this paper, they trace back the orders of shoot to kill all the way to the top, signifying that it is indeed an institutionalized policy, this pipe being in contravention of international law. Here's a quote I'm gonna read. It's not just about potentially rogue soldiers, but also about senior Israeli officials who publicly tell security forces to unlawfully shoot to kill, said Saori Bashi, Israel's advocacy director at HRW.
Then there's this piece published in the British Medical Journal from 2,005 entitled Israeli army's shoot to kill policy that specifically exposes the targeting of children through this shoot to kill policy. Renowned psychiatrist, doctor Derek Summerfield, who is involved with various studies on the effects of war and atrocity, wrote this piece. Let's read the highlighted parts together. My statement that clearly soldiers are routinely authorized to shoot to kill children in situations of minimal or no threat has now been confirmed in firmed in emphatic fashion, the authority being Israeli soldiers who have committed these acts themselves. Followed by, These soldiers testify that they were ordered in briefings to shoot to kill unarmed civilians, including children, even when there was no threat and in periods of calm.
This is from 2,005 proving to you that this is on and on and on going. Now, but Let's take it straight from the horse's mouth, the soldiers. Here's an article by The Guardian entitled, Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings By army and a culture of impunity, whistleblower's testimony. I've highlighted some sentences, in the article. Can we read them together?
Another soldier, Moshe, told The Guardian he and his colleagues came under pressure to obey illegal shoot to kill orders. As part of his sergeant's Training course, he and his fellow trainees were ordered to set up ambushes in Jenin. He said there was pressure to get kills. After Moshe returned to his paratroop unit, he said there were several incidents where children and teenagers were killed after bullets aimed at their legs hit their chests. The attitude was, he said, so kids got killed.
For a soldier, it means nothing. An officer can get a 100 or 200 shekel fine for such a thing, which is 12.5 to Ā£25. Amnesty International has also repeatedly said things like killing of children must be investigated, and Footage appears to show deliberate killing of Palestinian children. I want to explain why Israel does this, but I'm not done with presenting data. Children are not only shot and killed at point blank.
They are also shot to be maimed, which is also a policy. Here is Amnesty International's paper from 2018. Israel deliberate attempts by military to kill and maim Gaza protesters continues, that delves into the shoot to maim policy. Here is also Haaretz talking about blindfolding and shooting a child in his testicles to maim him. The child is already tied up and blindfolded, and then they still shot him in the groin.
They shoot children in their reproductive system. Here is the Haaretz again. 42 knees in one day, Israeli snipers open up about shooting Gaza protesters 2020. And here's how that's talking about a book called The Right to Maim by Jasvir Puar. And I'm quoting, Israel supplements its right to kill with the right to maim.
It argues that the Israeli state relies on liberal frameworks of disability to obscure and enable the mass debilitation of Palestinian bodies. What this author also discusses, Israel harvesting organs of dead Palestinians, which many other human rights organizations did. We're not gonna talk about this. We're only talking about children today. So when they're neither killed nor maimed, Children are kidnapped and locked in torture chambers without charge and sexually assaulted.
Read the highlighted parts. Most Palestinian children arrested by the IDF and police are intimidated, abused, and maltreated in custody, and several minors have been sexually assaulted. Do you remember when on Friday, 24th November, a 4 day truce was re was reached between Israel and Hamas in order for the hostage exchange to occur, which extended into a 7 day truce. Israel ended up releasing from its jails and torture centers a total of 240 women and Children. Did you hear me?
Children. 107 of them to be precise. Almost half were children, and another 65 of them were 18 years old. But for all we know, they were captured when they were below 18. So many people on social media asked, why are so many Palestinian children in Israeli jails?
Because it's an Israeli policy. In 2023 alone, soldiers arrested more than 880 children in the West Bank, in the 1st 10 months of just 2023, not only do they imprison children, but they imprison them without charge, and they torture them. Of the 300 person listed of, list of hostages that was released by Israel during the truce, 233 of them have no conviction. That's 3 quarters. Even the New York Times seemed bewildered when they reported on the lack of convictions in this article entitled Freed Palestinians were mostly young and not convicted of crimes.
And inside the article is this quote, The Israeli data shows that 3 quarters of the released Palestinians had not been convicted of a crime. It's called it's a practice called Administrative detention supported by Israeli law that allows Palestinians to be jailed for 6 months without charge or trial with a possibility of extending this period indefinitely through repeated extensions. But if and when they do get charged, it can be forever. You can see a little lower in the article. It says, nearly all Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts are convicted, and those accused of security offenses Can be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial.
The conviction rate is 99.7% for Palestinians and military courts. But many of those that do have convictions, especially security offenses, Have them very often for things like stone throwing or something as vague as supporting terrorism. Stay with me. Supporting terrorism for the Israelis includes Palestinians sharing a picture on social media of their killed relatives. And depending on the number of likes and shares received, the jail sentence is issued.
That's how dystopian this is. Here's Haaretz detailing that in in an article. How Israel jails Palestinians because they fit the terrorist profile? Check out this sentence. Let's leave it let's read it together.
Suhad Zalikat's husband was run over and killed in an accident in Israel in 2010. In the early hours of December 2, 2015, Israeli forces arrived at her home near Hebron, El Khalil, and arrested her. She was handed a screenshot of a Facebook post featuring a picture of her husband with the text, may God unite us in heaven. Following the interrogation, Zavikat was issued with a 4 month administrative detention order. Her detention was subsequently prolonged for an additional 4 months.
Most of the material in administrative detention is confidential, and neither the file nor the indictment is shown to the defendant. So they throw them in jail for sharing a picture of their killed relative with a grieving message. They don't Show them the indictment and their jail sentence is indefinitely renewed. And what do they do to them in this jail? Pirates again, this is an article just from last week.
Palestinians detained at is detained at Israeli prison report severe violence and abuse by guards. Read the highlighted part. I'm in a cell with an 18 year old child. If one of the guards catches him smiling, they take him to a blind spot the whole prison knows about. They took this kid there.
They stepped on his head and chest. They tell people to spread their legs, and they kick them between the legs. So these children are killed, maimed, kidnapped, severely abused, and raped in Israeli jails, but then they're gaslighted about it. Take this teenager, Mohammed Nazal, who was released on the 27th November during that famous hostage exchange truce Between Hamas and Israel, both his hands were broken due to what he says was the beating he received by Israeli guards 8 days before his release. He was beaten so hard, they broke both his hands.
So he spent 8 days with no medical care with fractured hands inside the jail. When he was released and news of his abuse surfaced, the Israeli government called him, of course, a liar publicly on the official Israel Twitter account saying, oh, when we released that liar, he had no bandages. But here is a shortened report by the BBC from November 30th, which proved that the Israelis are, as usual, lying.
Speaker 2: Mohammed says both hands were fractured in the assault 8 days before his release. Mohammed is still imprisoned by his injuries. Israel's prison service says Mohammed was examined by a doctor before release and that his claims are false. On the day he arrived back, A hospital in Ramallah confirmed that both his hands were fractured. We showed the X rays to 2 UK doctors who confirmed the diagnosis.
His medical report recommends admission to hospital and possible surgery.
Speaker 0: And to the doctors or geeks out there, here are some x rays of Hammad's hands. You can pause and take a look at them for yourself. So other than being the only country in the developed Twirled that institutionalizes a shoot to kill children policy, other than being the only country in the developed world that tortures and breaks the arms and legs of children when in captivity with no conviction. Israel is also the only country in the developed world that tries Children in a military court. A child gets arrested with any baseless accusation.
He or she then gets violently interrogated without the presence A lawyer or a parent. And he or she is pressured to plead guilty and to sign a document in a language they cannot read Under the threat of spending years in a military judicial process, it is common practice, widely documented by human rights organizations whose reports fall on deaf ears. I highly encourage you to read this report by Save the Children called Palestinian Children's Experience of the Israeli military detention system. And the quotes alone will keep you up at night. As well as this landmark 2013 UN report, children in Israeli military detention.
86% of detained Palestinian children said they had been beaten. 59% were arrested in the middle of the night during violent terrorizing house raids. And 23% We're isolated in solitary confinement. Interiorizing house raids. Children like 12 year old Kadeem are abducted.
Check out this sentence. Let's leave it let's read it together. Israeli forces blew open the family's old house in the Jalazon refugee camp north of Ramallah at dawn. When we woke Karim up, he immediately started vomiting out of fear, he added. Karim's father accompanied the child to the detention center in the Beit El Settlement north of Ramallah hoping to bring him back with him after a brief interrogation.
But the soldiers held the boy without charge and forced The father to return home without him. He still sleeps next to his toys. We are still in great shock. The family says the reason for the detention was not clarified by the army. 4 of Karim's brothers are already in Israeli detention.
Do you see everything we talked about today? All of these videos and pictures, etcetera. No Hamas anywhere. Patrick's photos were taken 30 years ago. Hamas won their 1st election in Gaza in January 2006, 13 years after his pictures were taken.
And they only started gaining significant political influence in the 2000 in the second intifada. And in the West Bank, not only does Hamas not run the West Bank. But do you know who controls the West Bank? Israel, with its most moral army in the world through martial law. Can you imagine for a second if these were Hamas militant soldiers, and these and these were Israeli children?
Just imagine what would have the western media done. This is all on top of the more than 9,000 children that were butchered in Gaza just since October 7th, enduring the most violent deaths imaginable. Not to mention the estimated 2,000 children under the rubble, nor the 1,000 plus amputee children, nor the WCNSF, which stands for wounded child, no surviving family, nor those that are currently alive and able-bodied, but getting starved to death and deprived of water, medicine, warmth, and housing by Israel and the US. Not a single competent military general in the world would look you in the eye and tell you that a serious military tactic To get rid of an armed group is to drop 65,000 tons of bombs on a defenseless civilian population, half of whom are children, while simultaneously starving them. So now onto my conclusion.
Why? Because none of this comes with a price tag. It is all for free. They don't pay for any of this. They don't pay for it financially.
They don't pay for it legally, morally, reputationally, or politically. It is all for free. When the international war world order permits a settler colonial state to go so violently rogue And it's state terrorism enough to allow itself the impunitive routine practice spanning decades to butcher children on purpose, and still be so uncomfortable to call for its accountability. When not only is there a lack of condemnation, They're not just silent like Amal Clooney and her husband and many of my Harvard classmates. But this international world order With emphasis on the global north, is actively supporting this butchering, all under the most hoaxable guise of self Defense despite the screaming evidence of Israel's heavily documented relentless oppression against the most vulnerable communities.
When the international world order indulges every single one of Israel's violations of international law, indulges the continuous Insane war crimes indulges the irremediably illegal policy of settlement settlement building despite the UN unanimously, Including the US flagging it as illegal and the contravention of international law, indulges the consistent violations of UNSC See resolutions which are binding, as per the UN Charter, putting Israel as the top violator of UNSC resolutions in the world, Indulges the falsification of every narrative and crime they commit. Indulges the relentless dehumanization of Palestinians and Arabs. Indulge's literal lynch mobs of illegal Israeli settlers marching and chanting, Meaning death to Arabs and abducting and killing Palestinian children and Palestinian civilians of all ages when there is scathing evidence That Israel purposely kills children, yet the international press does not report it or worse, reports it using Convoluted language, such as this Washington Post article, 4 fragile lives found ended in evacuated Reza hospital. Wow. What is this twisted syntax to tell the story of how the Israeli army literally forced Palestinian medics to leave behind Four babies in incubators in a neonatal intensive care unit of a Nasser hospital as they threatened them get out or be bombarded, and the Israeli army left The days old babies to die and rot in the hospital, the passivity and the coverup in that story headline is Astonishing.
So when that's how the western media reports on their crime. When the only thing the US Officials know how to do is to regurgitate Israeli propaganda and lies and does not even deign to mention the butchery of Palestinians happening not even once. What dystopian world have you created for my generation and the younger generations to possibly fix. We are observing the core of unmitigated and Unbounded state terrorism, and this is this unbridled boundlessness guarantees a cyclical outcome whereby neither Israelis nor Palestinians are ever gonna have security. And as long as the Israeli government does not have to pay for its psychopathy, it will never stop.
As long as the occupation is Free of charge for the Israeli state, there will be no change. The US pays for practically all of this due to the long standing US by Partisan tradition of providing exorbitant free quantities of weaponry and aid to Israel, all funded by US taxpayers, as well as Unabashed political cover. It is literally cost free for Israel to psychopathically oppress and occupy the Palestinians. It is cost free. The moment the Israelis start paying for the occupation and apartheid out of their own pockets, the moment they start paying for it Politically and reputationally, questions will rise from within the Israeli community, and the occupation is bound to end.
At the rate this is going, no one is going to win. It is crucial for people to grasp the profound impact of institutionalized State terrorism perpetuated by Israel. When impunity no longer shields their actions, internal pressure will drive necessary policy amendments. Holding them accountable will prompt a reckoning that they won't willingly endure. Let them pay for their crimes out of their own pocket.
Trust me, they're not going to want to do that, and the occupation will end. And over time, The Zionist chapter of Jewish history will lose momentum because it contradicts the essence of Judaism, And history shows oppressive systems inevitably crumble. There has been nothing more refreshing than to see the rise of So many Reconstructionist Jewish voices, denouncing more than ever the madness of the Israeli government and the Zionist practices, As they so loudly declare that the most insulting antithesis to Judaism is the betrayal of one of its principal tenets, which is nonviolence. And I believe that future generations of the descendants of these Israelis who are committing those crimes will flecked with profound regret upon the actions of their forebears. Israel must start paying for its crimes on every level.
It's the only way to stop the occupation and safeguard the safety of Israelis, of Palestinians, of Lebanese, of the region, and usher in much more peaceful times whereby their people are free and have the right to self determination. I hope this reaches the right people. Onwards.
