Collective punishment.
It’s been Israeli policy for decades.
In the occupied West Bank, we’re witnessing collective punishment in its purest form after the Israeli military said suspected Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers and injured three others near a checkpoint in Hebron on Friday. The suspected assailants were killed in the attack, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a “full lockdown” of the occupied West Bank, with Israeli forces conducting raids, forcibly displacing Palestinian families, and demolishing homes and structures of those who had nothing to do with the shooting.
Collective punishment is also what we’ve witnessed in Gaza for decades, especially over the last three years. Nearly every day this week, for example, Israel killed a child – sometimes more than one – in Gaza. Some of their names were:
Misk Hazem al-Dalou, 7
Abdul Rahman Khalil Awad, 10
Walid Mohammed Shakshak, 13
Yusuf Salim Abu Ghali, 14
Majd Mohammed Fakhri Hassan, 15
They are among the more than 350 children who have been killed since the so-called “ceasefire” a year ago.
As Israel inflicts collective punishment on Palestinians, the world largely remains silent. Here’s more on what Palestinians were forced to endure during another deadly and troubling week in Palestine: