Palestinian boys pose with toy guns in the Souq, which is empty because of Eid family celebrations.
Although toy guns always have been and always will be popular with boys, this is still sad for me to see, especially in a part of the world where there is so much violence and injustice. Palestinian children in Hebron and across the West Bank see guns everyday, in the hands of Israeli soldiers who abuse and occupy and mistreat them and their parents and families. Many of them are very angry. something that plays into the hands of some Palestinian armed groups, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, who have been known to recruit youth and use them in attacks, something that is against international law. Although all these groups deny using these children as combatants, the reality is sometimes different.
An Israeli settler boy who is holding a toy gun walks by an Israeli soldier, who is holding a real M16. Unlike his Palestinian counterparts in Hebron, the settler boy and others like him get to hang out with Israeli soldiers and watch them detain and harass and even shoot people- yes, last year I witnessed settler kids hang out with Israeli soldiers as they were shooting at Palestinian demonstrators during clashes. Unlike some Palestinian kids in Hebron this year who have been harassed and even detained by Israeli soldiers for playing with toy guns, he has nothing to fear from them. It isn't unheard of, though this does happen rarely, for Palestinian kids with toy guns to be shot by Israeli soldiers. I am unaware of any Israeli children, settler or otherwise, in such a predicament.
In very different ways, both Israeli settler and Palestinian kids in Hebron are victims. One group is raised in an environment whose parents and community are oppressors. The others are in an environment of the abused and oppressed.
Neither is good for kids. Neither Palestinian or Israeli kids should have to live with war and fear. May God bring peace one day so they can live in equality and peace.
Myself and Badia Dwaik, leader of Human Rights Defenders.
Shopping market in H1 Hebron.
Palestinian kids by the store close to our apartment in Tel Rumeida. Thank God, it is not closed for Eid... unlike, well, almost everything else around us.
Palestinian sweets.
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