During my visit I spent time outside of Gaza city visiting a community centre with local friends who work with children. On this day I had the opportunity to see a group of children from a refugee camp. There are now some 60,000 refugees in the town and I was told that all the children I would see were homeless refugees and many of them are now orphans since the genocide Israel inflicted on the civilians of Gaza.
I was standing in a hallway beside a door where the children were to be assembled. Soon I began to hear lots of little footsteps coming up the stairs, as I stood waiting to see the first little face, they began to pass by me, one by one and I was overwhelmed with sadness and grief for them. It's in their eyes.........
As the children passed by, what I first noticed were their tiny faces, devoid of emotion or expression, robotic, and blank. Their eyes were lifeless with nothing behind them, no spark, no joy, just blank and expressionless, just like their tiny faces. They are the walking dead of Gaza, without one word spoken, their eyes were telling the story of the evil genocide they witnessed. These children are living casualties of Israel’s war crimes and Americas enabling of Israel’s wanton unbridled aggression. The walking dead will not appear in the Goldstone report, or on the casualty list from this war. But they are the walking dead of Gaza, it's in their eyes.....
I was told many of the children were emotionally damaged, even much older children had begun sucking their thumbs, and the younger ones had begun to sit and rock, over and over, as if in a trance, left stranded in a terrible place with no escape. Proof positive of the horrendous damage inflicted onto their tiny souls. Many had simply stopped speaking after the war, no longer verbal, no longer willing to engage. Their little mouths silenced from the horror of seeing their mothers murdered, homes destroyed and life as they knew it, come to a spectacular fiery end. Others felt the need to hide behind furniture or adults. I wondered how these children could ever begin to deal with having seen their parents slaughtered, along with everything that meant safety, family and home to them. Their entire world was rocked off its axis, and all of this was taken from them in a mere matter of seconds, only one year ago. All wiped out in the time it takes you to switch channels on your television or unwrap a chocolate bar. Think about that for one moment! Delivered with surgical precision from un-manned drones equipped with US made bombs, DIME missiles and white phosphorous from above; Very clean, very deadly, and very life destroying.
We think we understand what Israel is, and what it is capable of, what it did in Gaza. But we know nothing, we sit, we write, we organise, we do what we can, but it's just not enough! I am overwhelmed with the enormous realisation that an entire generation of damaged children lay squarely at the feet of humanity, and humanity has slammed the door in their faces. I am haunted by this........it's their eyes
As the world's super powers release press statement after press statement containing nothing but dry overstated useless platitudes; Explain to these broken children about borders, about UN resolutions ignored, about elections ignored, about democracy ignored, about land theft ignored, about settlements ignored, about Obama's pretty words to the world. Explain to them why Israel is allowed to drop DIME missiles and white phosphorous onto their homes and families with impunity. Explain to them why the UN allows this and why America backs this with 3 billion to Israel each year as these children barely exist, damaged, broken, and living in tents with raw sewage swimming past them. Explain to them why the world mobilises to help the children of Haiti, and why one year later no one comes to help the children of Gaza! And whilst your at it, explain it to me, because I see no humanity left within the rogue state of Israel, or it's blind supporter America, if it's people are capable of justifying such acts of barbarism onto children and then compounding it by not allowing aid or treatment or the slim chance of rebuilding a tiny part of their lives because of the illegal siege. There is no explanation in existence for all of this, save for an insane religious crusade of ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian human life forms, so that a racist gang of sub-human thieving religious thugs can colonize someone elses land. Hitler would be proud of what sprang from the ashes from his holocaust survivors.
These children need no words to tell their story, there is no language barrier between English and Arabic, no need for translation, and there is no need for verbal communication. It’s the eyes…….And those eyes will haunt you forever…..
But so far we have been discussing the walking dead, and they are the lucky ones, if there is such a thing. Back in May 2009 we reported on the little child below:
His entire family had been wiped out by Israel, he was the last remaining one, clinging to life by a thread. When we first met him he was in hospital in very critical condition. When Richard Goldstone was in Gaza investigating war crimes at the same hospital, he also met this little boy and was overwhelmed with grief for him as well. He desperately needed treatment that required him to leave Gaza and his doctors said that unless he got that treatment soon, then he was just merely waiting to die. Dear God this is so hard to report, but we met with his doctor in Gaza this trip and sadly we were told he has died because he was unable to leave Gaza for the treatment that could have saved his life.
I want to scream, I want to hit something....What can we do, who can save the rest of them? Who can fix the broken and dying children? What has happened to mankind? What kind of animal is so evil that a small dying boy is considered a threat, undeserving of medical treatment. His life worth nothing as gluttonous Israelis sit happy in their nice green stolen settlements on Palestinian land, stealing more and more, killing more and more, sucking up the water and resources for their own kind, whilst inflicting a quiet genocide on the rightful owners, even their children. This is pure evil in its most vile form, any "people" that condone this are no better then those who took out thousands in the World Trade Center. Evil is Evil. And this innocent little boy now joins his dead family, he's the last one gone. Murdered by the 4th largest army in the world using American made weapons, funding and full support.
Be they the dead, or the walking dead, these children have lost everything that made up the fabric of their tiny lives and their tiny world. This is what American tax payers get for their annual 3 billion sent to Israel; the death and destruction of thousands of little shattered lives. When you lay down in your nice safe bed each night, in your nice safe country, in your nice safe neighbourhood, as you tell yourself you are a decent God fearing, caring, Democratic and civilised country, may you remember the eyes of the children in Gaza whom you helped destroy.
And may their eyes haunt you forever………….
