Gazan children are often unable to access necessary medical services, in addition to other restrictions, even during peacetime
My friend Ruba has a daughter named Reem. She’s two-and-a-half years old, with an impish grin and curly hair. She’s a fan of Nutella, she likes to run and play with her older brother and sister, and she likes to pretend to be talking on a cellphone, giggling and mimicking her mother, who is a bubbly, passionate pediatrician I met while working for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza.
Since the news broke of Hamas’s brutal attacks on civilians in Israel, there’s been an uptick in discussion about collective punishment, a war crime under international humanitarian law., the term refers to “types of sanctions, harassment or administrative action taken against a group in retaliation for an act committed by an individual/s who are considered to form part of the group.
There’s a statistic that has haunted me since I first saw it. In 2022, Save the Children found that half of its survey sample of kids in GazaReem doesn’t know what Hamas is, or Israel, but she’s lived through three major conflicts between them and now enters her fourth. She can’t yet read or write, but she already knows she must get away from the windows when the bombs start shaking the ground; she knows her mom always has a bag packed by the door.
Now, in times of war, things are worse. Ruba was one of the fortunate few who got a call from the Israeli military on Oct. 9, warning that her building might be bombed. She and her husband got Reem and her siblings out in time and the building was partially damaged, but Ruba told me the neighbouring apartment complex was flattened, still holding families who didn’t get a call or were unable to get out.
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