11.28.2006

Save The Children, Indeed

Also from Levi at Jews Sans Frontieres comes this (a post entitled "Save the Children... from Israel"), at a time when some 900 Palestinian children have died in the last few years from Israeli weaponry, much more than the equally tragic but far more extensively publicized deaths of children in Israel from Palestinian suicide bombers (strange, a teenager with a rigged suicide belt just never has quite the destructive efficacy of a U.S.-manufactured-and-donated-to-Israel helicopter gunship shooting "fish in the barrel" of a locked-in Palestinian community or refugee camp):

    The end of the [Lebanon] war has not meant the end of suffering for children. Unexploded bombs are a real and present danger for children. Towards the end of the war some 4,000 explosive items were dropped daily on southern Lebanon; with a failure rate estimated by the mine action group to be at least 10%. These included cluster bombs, which have a much higher failure rate.

    Often brightly coloured and the size of drinks cans, children can mistake these deadly weapons for toys or pick them up for souvenirs. Unexploded bombs are expected to be found under destroyed buildings. As families clear the rubble – often with the help of children – further casualties are expected.

    The risk of accidents for children is now very high. Villages that have been flattened by intense bombings have become a highly dangerous environment for children to live and play in. This increased risk of physical injury is at a time when health centres are struggling with shortages of medicines, fuel and water, which increases the threat to children’s safety even more.
There's also a link to a page that shows what Save the Children is doing to protect children from these racist war criminals of the State of Israel.
And the U.S. does the same in Iraq; we encircle Sadr City and Fallujah, permit no one to leave, and then bring in our airborne gunships to shoot randomly. Some who die are troublemakers... but many are innocent civilians, among them so, so, so very many children.