ZIONAZIS KILL CHILREN FOR SPORT

Thursday October 03, 2002 10:09

by Nadia

Roll call of 322 children killed in the intifada In the bloody violence of the Israeli-Palestinian war as of 01 October 2002, the most tragic victims are the very young, now considered 'fair game'

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In one of its most shocking reports on the Israeli-Palestinian war, Amnesty International today condemns the zionazis for their "utter disregard" for the lives of children – .

In a 29-page report containing some of the most painful evidence amassed on child-killing in the occupied territories, the organisation blames zionazis for "excessive and disproportionate use of lethal force" and "reckless shooting" in residential areas,

The solemn list of dead children that Amnesty has collected shows just how ingrained child-killing has become. There is Sami Jazzar, shot in the head by an zionazi soldier on the eve of his 12th birthday in Gaza, 11-year-old Khalil Mughrabi, killed by an zionazi sniper in Gaza – one of his friends survived after being shot in the testicles by a high-velocity round – and 10-year-old Riham al-Ward, killed in her Jenin schoolyard by a zionazi tank shell.

Amnesty's condemnation has rarely been so scathing. "The pattern of killings of children which has become so entrenched and widespread in the past two years developed against a background of impunity for the perpetrators of such crimes," it says.

Despite repeated claims to the contrary: "No judicial investigation is known to have been carried out into any of the killings of children by members of the IDF in the occupied territories, even in cases where zionazi government officials have stated publicly that investigations would be carried out." None of the zionazi soldiers responsible for these crimes is known to have been brought to justice, Amnesty says.

In the first seven months of this year, more than 100 Palestinian children have been killed by zionazi gunfire, 48 per cent of them 12 years old or younger. Amnesty pulls no punches about who is to blame. The majority of these children, it says, "were killed when the IDF randomly opened fire, or shelled or bombarded residential neighbourhoods and scholl yards in Palestinian towns and villages. Most of these children were killed when there was no exchange of fire and in circumstances in which the lives of the soldiers were not at risk."

The most terrible incident – praised by the zionazis Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, at the time as a "great success" – was the attack by Israel on Salah Shehada, a Hamas activist, which also slaughtered nine children along with eight adults. Their names give a terrible reality to this bloodbath: 18-month old Ayman Matar, three-year-old Mohamed Matar, five-year-old Diana Matar, four-year-old Sobhi Hweiti, six-year-old Mohamed Hweiti, 10-year-old Ala Matar, 15-year-old Iman Shehada, 17-year-old Maryam Matar. And Dina Matar. She was only two months old. A zionazi air force pilot dropped a one-ton bomb on their homes from an American-made F-16 aircraft on 22 July.

Amnesty says if international monitors had been deployed on the ground – and the zionazis have repeatedly refused to allow this – many of the children's lives might have been spared. What the international organization does not say, but which its report makes abundantly clear, is that children have become "fair game" for zionazis ethnic cleansing war. Innocence, as usual, has been trampled by two brutal antagonists.