SAMI, Khatem, Halima, Mousa, Abdel, Maha, Laila, Hatem, Hana all and others aged 7–14, with rustled hair and in soiled, torn dresses stood in a serpentine queue with contorted faces and deformed tin plates and bowls of different sizes and colours dangling loosely from their stretched out, long waiting skinny hands due to lack of sufficient grips. Their eyeballs protruding from deepened sockets caused by chronic hunger, sleeplessness and fatigueÌý kept rolling as they looked at the truck laden with porridge stationed about 200 metre away from them, ready to deliver the ever-expected, life-giving meals.
They did not mind the scorching sun as their belly skin was almost attached to the backbone of their skeletal bodies. The younger ones half-starved clung to the elders as little monkeys do in a typical zoo cage. The saviour of humanity,Ìý the Gaza Humanitarian Aid people, were shouting at them to line up in silence and patiently wait to collect food. Everything was fine and ‘heavenly’ — the hungry to receive blessings of providence from the saviour, the Gaza Humanitarian Aid, but the sudden horrific firing took place.
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Mass grave site for children
THE sound and flames and blood and bullets and cries made the spot a hell within moments. The bodies lay lifeless scattered in minutes. Some of the people were still groaning in gore and agony, trying to reclaim their breath. This and similar other scenes were the daily demonstration of the utmost bestiality by the Israeli Defence Forces in the ruined city of Gaza while the country simultaneously perpetrated barbaric attacks on the military and the civilian sites in Iran since June 13. The whole world, full of puppet-like, hollow bargainers of humanity and dignity of life, enjoyed the show on television and social media. They sniffed closely at the thin streams of blood gushing out after IDF personnel had fired bullets from heavy machine guns. And, the sight seemed not enough. They were intent to find the colour of the draining liquid: red or black, or blue? As if they missed the chance to physically witness the most sight of the gradual but certain diminishing of life’s very essence from the starved children until each of them became motionless, lying on the sand.
Their curiosity levels were different in terms of their being the prisoners of different geographic locations and, of course, the faiths that they upheld. But the point at which all of them were the most synchronised with perfect harmony was their silence about the heinous children genocide that the world has ever seen. Some mortally injured were quickly taken out of the spot by some fellows to be taken care of in a nearby, devastated hospital that lay as good as a devil’s resting place, where none was available to donate blood to the profusely bleeding victims as the entire population near by had been starving for the last six months or a year causing them severe anaemia. So, there was hundred per cent certainty that a victim would die merely from uncontrolled bleeding.
Greta Thunberg seemed to be the only voice of humanity on this planet to find a way. Madleen, her small boat sailing against all the odds and wind laden with goods and savories for the children of Gaza early June seemed the last iota of hope and rescue. Being intercepted by the Israeli authorities, the small group of volunteers, including the young harbinger of life on Gaza, the Death Valley, were put under investigation in the name of medical examination. The boat has never reached the destination. The starving children were denied their rights to life.
The use of starvation as a strategy to warfare is illegal as the international law says. But Israel is a country that is above all the laws. While targeting civilians, more specifically women and children, safeguarded by international conventions and treaties, Israel is the only exception. It is allowed not only to target the civilians but also places of necessary civic amenities such as hospitals, libraries, mosques, etc. Throughout its unparalleled intelligence gathering mechanism, Israel comes up with information on the Palestinians’ unmatched militancy, mostly demonstrated in throwing stones at the wolfish Israeli soldiers by the delinquent youths. The unearthed secret recipe of existential threatening which the whole world has never imagined in the wildest guesses thus, legalise the slaughtering of hundreds of innocent lives.
Those who are fallen are gone and will be forgotten soon. The credit goes to the diminishing memory of ours. But those alive in a skeletal form will not be able to forget themselves, their burden of living on the mother earth as long as they are bound to carry their semi-fossilised living condition. Researchers are of the opinion that those who fell prey to the most systematic starvation in Gaza will suffer severely in terms of brain activity and a functional day-to-day life in future. And for the most cowardice forces of Israel, here lies the sustainable solution to the existentialist threats on them from the Gazan babies today who could have been throwers of stones some day.
Do I dare then to say that it was a boon for those who had been shot dead before their languishing death from hunger?
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Md Mukhlesur Rahman Akand is a joint secretary to the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.