What drew kids to that Gaza fence?
Children knew the risks, says Canadian UNICEF worker who verified the carnage
OTTAWA — When Genevieve Boutin and her colleagues at the United Nations Children’s Fund were finished verifying the aftermath of last week’s carnage at the Gaza-Israel fence, they added seven more to their tally of dead children.
That included a statistical first: a girl — the first female killed among the 13 children shot since protests erupted at the fence on March 30. The protests were a burning fuse that exploded last Monday into the bloodiest day between Gaza and Israel in four years. The children are among the 59 Palestinians shot by Israeli forces, a total that includes a Canadian doctor trying to help the wounded. A Hamas official has since said that 50 of those were from their militant group.
That Hamas number has been seized on by Israel, and its Canadian supporters, to fire back politically at several world leaders — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — for implying in their calls for an independent investigation into the tragedy that the Israeli military may have used excessive force.
At least one Canadian Jewish group says Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields and the Trudeau government should be standing in firm solidarity with Israel’s right to self-defence.
For Boutin, a Quebec City native who is UNICEF’s special representative in the West Bank and Gaza, the politics and statistics graze the surface of a burning question that she has tried to answer in numerous conversations with injured children and their grieving families: What draws you to that dangerous fence?
The answers she’s getting can’t be measured solely by rhetoric or numbers: “They exemplify the human drama that is taking place in Gaza.”
In the first few weeks, many kids told her that “life is boring here, nothing ever happens” so they were curious about the growing fuss over their fence.
“As the weeks wore on, more and more kids obviously know the risks as they go,” said Boutin.
“There’s a number of kids who say, ‘There’s nothing I have to lose, I don’t see a future for myself and I’m showing the world our situation has to change so I am participating in it.’”
In addition to the fatalities, more than 1,000 Palestinian children have also been wounded by live fire since March 30, said Boutin, 43.
“Many of them are serious injuries that could lead to amputations and certainly handicaps for life. Just that, in and of itself, is horrific in terms of the impact on children.”
She recalled consoling the father of a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the early days of the protests several weeks ago. The boy was hit by a bullet after running off. The father still has his son, but is tormented with regret.
Two other older teenagers who were killed defied the stereotype of the bored, vulnerable youth who become easy prey for militants — both were about to take the equivalent of their final high school exams.
“That means some of these kids were engaged still in the education system,” said Boutin.