Speak up against Palestinian genocide to save children, save community, save ourselves | Opinion
The pictures of my birthday are dark. Lit by candle and oil lamp 15 years ago. Far from home, my dear friends made me feel like family. The occupation army had destroyed the electrical lines. My friends taught me to live, study, learn and dance in the darkness. They taught me to see joy in the darkness.
My friends are in darkness once more. Electricity and water are again cut off. They have kids of their own, as I do. When I ask how they are, they send videos of their children playing, laughing, dancing. They taught me then, and teach me now, that joy and living life are acts of resistance.
As a pediatrician, my professional obligation is to all children. A 16-year-old high school girl, Lujain, was shot in Jenin, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, when she looked out her window. A 13-year-old girl, Banah, was shot inside her own home.
By March of this year, more children had been killed in a number of months in Palestine than were killed globally over the last four years combined. The majority killed are women and children . Over 500 healthcare workers have been killed. Amid the polio epidemic, Dr Mahmoud Al-Manama, the director of the Central Laboratory at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, was killed in a direct airstrike on his home.
As we witness Israel's systematic targeting of the health system, the destruction of hospitals, and the torture of doctors and nurses , the Lancet medical journal estimates that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza.
The equivalent of three nuclear bombs have been dropped in an area fitting between Olympia and Tacoma. The methods used to kill are targeting children . Children die first from dehydration. They do not withstand starvation; at least 38 children have starved to death.
I sent my child back to school, and I remembered seeing a child in Gaza crying when school was dismissed back in October. Her teacher, to comfort her, said, "It's the last day of school for now, not the last day of school forever." I wondered if that child intuited the coming reality. For the second year, schools are used as shelters for families; 70% of these school shelters have been bombed . One school was bombed exactly at the time of the dawn prayer, killing those who were praying.
Physicians and nurses who have been courageous enough to go to Gaza penned a letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and a total arms embargo. They bear witness to the targeting of children: "Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated preteen children who were shot in the head and chest."
Violence supported by our leaders increases violence in our community. Palestinian children and families in the US feel afraid and with good reason: 3- and 6-year-old children have been nearly drowned , and 6-year-old Wadea Fayoumi was stabbed to death. Students have been shot , and run over by cars for being Palestinian . All our children are affected by witnessing violence and racism against Palestinians and others who support human rights.
Children have a deep sense of fairness. They are looking for adults who will raise their voice to say when something is wrong. Just one adult speaking up is protective for children, even if they don't change the trauma a child is experiencing at the time. Speaking up, raising our voices, and doing something, however small, is protective for ourselves, for our children, and for our community.
