Of the 933 Israelis killed in the past four years, 117 were under 18,
many of them blown up by suicide bombers on buses or in cafes. Of the
3,111 Palestinians who have died since 2000, 652 were under 18, many
shot while throwing rocks at heavily armed Israeli soldiers. But while
the number of Israeli deaths has dropped in the last year, partly due
to the new security fence in the West Bank, the toll among Palestinian
youth remains high. In October, no children died from terror attacks in
Israel. But 13 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers, 11 of them
in the Gaza Strip. Among the victims: Imam al-Hams, a 13-year-old girl
who wandered near an Israeli military outpost in southern Gaza on Oct.
5. Her family said she was going to school; soldiers said they thought
she was planting a bomb. The soldiers fired repeatedly even after one
remarked that she was just "a little girl" who appeared "scared to
death." Then, as seen on a tape obtained by an Israeli TV station, the
company commander charged Imam as she lay still, pumped at least a
dozen bullets into her body and announced he had "verified the kill."
The commander, who was suspended, is charged with obstruction of
justice and illegally using a weapon. His action outraged not just
Palestinians, but also many Israelis. "The ease with which commanders
accept the killing of children and innocent civilians demeans the
character of Israeli society," editorialized the newspaper Haaretz. [more]
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