JERUSALEM: One child was sitting on her mother’s lap. Another had just stepped outside his home. Another was picking almonds.
The United Nations reports that at least 18 children under the age of 15 have been killed by Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank this year, marking the third consecutive year child fatalities in the territory have reached the double digits.
Some died during Israeli military raids; others were shot while walking in their neighborhoods, playing outside or staying inside their homes. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since January.
Among the children killed were Layla, 2, shot in Jenin while perched on her mother’s lap; Saddam, 10, killed while holding his father’s phone in Tulkarem; Amer, 14, a US citizen from New Jersey whose father said he was shot while picking almonds; Ayman, 12, killed outside his grandfather’s home in Hebron; Rimas, 13, shot in the Jenin refugee camp while playing outside; Ahmad, 14, killed in Sebastia under unclear circumstances; and Mahmoud, 14, one of five people killed in a Jenin missile strike that spared only his father.
Parents cling to the belongings their children left behind — savings books, toys and photographs. They inhale the scent of clothes once worn. Young boys and girls proudly show pendants emblazoned with their dead sibling’s face.
