Chicago Tribune | Too many kids caught in the crossfire
Look at a child you love. Touch his hair, her skin. Look into those eyes, those bottomless eyes, those eyes that radiate more light than the sun and the moon and all the stars. Then imagine, for a split second, if your mind will allow in even that much horror, imagine that girl, that boy, dead. Killed in your arms, next to you, holding your hand.

I don't know how parents survive. I don't know how their lungs continue to function, their blood to flow, their legs to propel them forward. But the highly regarded Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, reports that, in the past 22 months, the mothers and fathers of about 125 Palestinian kids age 14 and younger and 35 Israeli children of the same age have had to learn how to go on.

I'm an American-Israeli in a constant state of despair over the war Israel is waging against the Palestinian people. I'm never more horrified than when the victims of our vastly superior military force--whether through intent or negligence, it just doesn't matter--are children.

Earlier this summer, Randa al-Hindi was riding in a taxi with three of her children; at a roadblock outside Gaza City, Israeli soldiers in an armored carrier thought they saw "suspicious" figures in the car. Rather than shoot out its tires, demand that the riders disembark, take a closer look, anything, they fired into the cab, killing Randa and Anwar, her 2-year-old daughter.

One Friday in May, 7-year-old Amid Abd Alsamad abu Sief was on his way to the mosque with his father. Friday prayers are the high point of the Muslim week, so he was, no doubt, well-scrubbed and wearing his best clothes; I picture him running to keep up with his dad. He was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. His father was critically wounded.
Perhaps the most infamous example is this: 12-year-old Mohammed Aldura, shot dead in September 2000, as his unarmed father, waving frantically and shouting "Don't shoot!" tried to shield him with his own body, as soldiers fired round after round after round. For 45 minutes.

There are, of course, devastating cases of the murder of Israeli children: suicide bombings at establishments frequented by teenagers, on public buses, at an ice cream parlor. Thoughts of the Palestinian sniper who shot 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass, in the head, in her father's arms, still leave me breathless.

It is easy to understand when the parents of murdered children lose their minds in grief and turn with ravenous anger on those responsible. The almost incomprehensible thing is when they do not.

Five years ago, Israeli Smadar Elhanan was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber while shopping for school books. She was 14. Today, on the door to her parents' Jerusalem apartment there is a bumper sticker that reads "Free Palestine."

Smadar's father, Rami, recently told the London Mirror that the blame for his daughter's death rests squarely on the shoulders of Israel's government.

"Our daughter was killed because of the terror of Israeli occupation," he said. "Every innocent victim from both sides is a victim of the occupation."

Rami's father survived the Holocaust; his grandfather, aunts and uncles all perished. He and his wife responded to their own tragedy by joining the parents of a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli soldiers, forming a group called the Bereaved Family Forum. If there is a more godly response to a history of hatred and death, I don't know it.

The heart's immediate response to these stories is to cry out for an end to the violence. It is, however, easier to demand that the killing end than to stop it. Not because people are animals, but because people are people. Because life is made up of infinitely more than just being alive.

This is what the occupation means: Malnourishment among Palestinian children is on the rise, a result of the curfews Israel has imposed on the towns and villages it has seized; as of April, Israel had demolished more than 225 homes since the outbreak of the intifada; in the last quarter of 2001, unemployment among 20- to 24-year-olds in the Gaza Strip stood at 45 percent, in no small part because most are no longer allowed to seek work inside Israel; Palestinian ambulances are regularly kept from reaching people wounded in Israeli actions, while the sick or injured or pregnant are frequently detained for hours on end at Israeli roadblocks while on their way to the hospital.

Hope an amazing thing

It is, to my mind, a wonder that anyone growing up under these circumstances is able to find any hope at all. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak once said that if he had grown up in a Palestinian refugee camp, he too would be wearing a mask and fighting the occupation.

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