A few statistics about Gaza...

With all the recent media coverage of 'terrorist attacks' in Gaza i.e. rockets being launched out of the Gaza strip into Israel, and the IDF's military response, I thought it was high time for just a few facts about the state of things in Gaza that we don't normally here about.

This extract is from John Pilger's article "Children of the Dust" in last week's New Statesman (28th May 2007, p. 26-28: Please try and read the full article it is availible online at: http://www.newstatesman.com/):

"More than 40 per cent of the population of Gaza are children under the age of 15. Reporting on a four-year field study in occupied Palestine for the British Medical Journal, Dr Derek Summerfield wrote that "two-thirds of the 621 children killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest - the sniper's wound". A friend of mine with the United Nations calls them "children of the dust". Their wonderful childishness, their rowdiness and giggles and charm, belie their nightmare.

I met Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist who heads one of several children's community health projects in Gaza. He told me about his latest survey. "The statistic I personally find unbearable," he said, "is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma, you see why: 99.2 per cent of the study group's homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed."

In my opinion, as a bit of a structuralist... when we talk about 'terrorism' in Gaza particular, we shouldn't be talking about the 'right to resist' or on the other hand 'the right to security' we should maybe just think, in practice terms - what on earth else do we expect human beings to do in these circumstances?!

If I were to walk round Lancaster campus tomorrow and punch every one I saw once in the face, I might be lucky a few times: I might punch a pacifist the first time, and an elderly lady the second time, and so avoid any retaliation. But, if I did it a hundred times surely the common sence conclusion would be that most people would resist, and probably do anything they could to resist me.

So, if an overcrowded city is encircled within a wall, trapped between the sea on one side and the IDF on the other, where "4,000 Palestinians have been killed (half of them children)" (Ilan Pappe, in Pilger, p. 27) by Israeli forces, all international aid is cut off, people live in constant fear and chaos of a military occupation... forget 'justice' and 'rights' - they don't come into it - why do we expect them to do anything else other than hit back.