Scholasticide at Every Level
The beginning of a new school year. By Wednesday, everything will be open, every classroom on campus, every elementary and high school, every recreation facility, every gym, every nursery school – all to cater to returning or brand-new students. The year is full of hope for some and huge concern for those watching the Gaza genocide.
The place that deserves our concern and outrage is Gaza, where from 1,000 to 5,000 Gazans, mainly children, have had an arm or leg (or both) severed by Israeli missile attacks since Oct 7, 2023. “This is the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history,” said Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a London-based plastic-and-reconstructive surgeon who specializes in pediatric trauma. He has treated children living in war-torn countries including Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. Most recently, he spent 43 days working for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza. There, he performed up to six amputations a day.
What About Gaza?
World health experts also point out that Gazan children are being shredded and incinerated. “I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week,” shared Dr Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American doctor, in a harrowing testimony that reminds us of the true nature of Israel’s war on Gaza. His interview on CBS, which went viral recently, provided a shocking account of the suffering endured by Gaza’s children due to the Israeli aggression. Losing an arm or leg is possibly the most traumatic thing that can happen to anyone, let alone it happening to a child. In the Gaza strip, there are few hospitals still functioning, almost no anesthetics and painkillers available, and no access to rehabilitation or physical therapy. None of these severely disabled children can even get to school, or manage – if by some miracle it were open.
More than 80% of all schools have been destroyed; there is not one daycare; not one university open.
All 12 universities in Gaza have been demolished, bombed by the Israelis. As one Israeli soldier filmed himself walking through the horrifying ruins of Azhar University, he proudly says to the camera: “How beautiful: We’re starting a new semester. It’ll start never!”
This may be the start of a new school year across Canada, but in Gaza there is no normal. I should say the normal is so profoundly shocking and deadly that those who read about it can’t imagine. Children scavenge through garbage for half-empty water bottles and old wrappers of leftover food. The children gather green leaves and grass for their mothers to boil in a soup. The children wait in long lines all day long for a bowl or two of food from UNRWA to take back to the family’s tent. There is no kindling, and besides, building a fire can seriously injure the thousands who live nearby on the ground under plastic sheets. The market stalls are nearly empty, and what little there is is priced so high few Palestinians have to the money to pay.
More than one million Gazans under age 18 – 640,000 need immunization.
In February, the UN estimated that more than 17,000 children have no parents – as they have been killed by Israeli snipers, bombs, missiles, or murdered in their collapsed homes. The children are labelled WCNSF, or “wounded child, no surviving family.” That number has likely doubled by now. There are more than 1,068,000 children (under age 18) in Gaza; more than 6,000 have been killed, and more than 10,000 seriously injured by Israel’s war on Gaza.
The latest UN report tells us that water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services are severely curtailed because of the destruction of water and sanitation facilities, little access, and limited resources. For example, Gaza City has reported 97 water wells have been destroyed by Israel’s bombings, and 13 major sewage pumps, 57 generators for the wells and 204 garbage trucks have been ruined. Also 255,000 metres of water and sewage lines have been destroyed since Oct 7. The rainy season is coming fast, which means the conditions will further deteriorate, with flooding, winds, having to sleep rough, and no proper shelters or sewage treatment.
And there is the huge problem of the World Health Organization and its health care workers trying to vaccinate 640,000 children under 10 years of age against polio. Workers at three or four centres in Gaza are trying to administer the vaccine to literally more than half a million. And a necessary second dose has to be given a month after the first.
Though Israel says it has allowed several days’ “pauses” in bombing and terrorizing the civilians in order to facilitate the vaccinations, the killings go on.
Israel Continues to Kill and Palestinian Death Toll Rises
This weekend, hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis have protested the fact that more than 100 Jewish hostages have not been released, and scores have been killed (likely by Israeli missiles targeting hospital grounds, churches, and schools) Meanwhile, there is little interest in the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza. In the five days from Aug 29 to Sept. 2 in Gaza more than 184 Palestinians were killed by Israel and 369 injured. According to Relief Web:
- On Aug. 29, nine Palestinians, including three children (of whom two were newborn), and two women (of whom one was pregnant), were killed when the upper floor of a residential tower was hit in Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah.
- On Aug 29, five Palestinians were killed and at least 13 others injured in Deir al Balah.
- On Aug 29, five Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when internally displaced people’s (IDP) tents were hit in east Khan Younis.
- On Aug 31, seven Palestinians from the same family were killed when a house was hit in a neighbourhood of Gaza city.
- On Aug 31, five Palestinians, including three females and a doctor, were reportedly killed when a house was hit by a missile in southern Khan Younis.
- On Aug 31, five Palestinians, including four females, were killed and 15 others injured when a house was hit in southern Khan Younis.
On Sunday Sept 1 in Gaza City, Israel bombed Safad school where hundreds were sheltering, killing 11 Palestinians including a woman and a girl. The Israeli military said it was targeting a “Hamas command center” inside the school, which – like other Gaza schools that remain standing – was being used as a shelter for people displaced by Israel’s nearly 11-month assault. These deaths lift the total to 40,786 Palestinians murdered since Oct. 7 and more than 94,000 seriously injured.
The latest missile strikes, bombings, and sniper attacks by Israel are in the midst of what are supposed to be three-day “pauses” in fighting to enable health workers to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children at risk. Clearly, Israel continues to target civilians – families who are waiting for polio vaccinations or are trying to get to a clinic. What does that say about Israel’s much vaunted “most moral army in the world.” •
