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Summary: Extreme poverty caused by conflict and the ongoing blockade of Gaza is causing children to scavenge near the border with Israel, with potentially deadly consequences.
(19 January 2011) Some children in the Gaza Strip are coming under regular gunfire from Israeli soldiers while scavenging for construction materials left over from buildings destroyed during the Israeli military offensive of January 2009 and other military incursions. According to the UNICEF-led working group on Children Affected by Armed Conflict, 26 children were shot by Israeli troops close to the border during the last year, including 16 children who were outside an Israeli-imposed exclusion zone that extends 300 metres into Gaza (source cited below). With construction materials in high demand, children and adults are risking death and serious injury by attempting to remove rubble or cultivate land in areas close to Gaza’s border with Israel. “The blockade must end immediately and there must be a review of policies with respect to the border area,” said Salam Kanaan, Save the Children UK’s Country Director in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “The Gaza blockade has put children’s lives at risk.” In September two 16-year old boys and their 91-year old grandfather were killed by an Israeli tank shell some 700 metres from the border, highlighting the deadly force used against children working outside the so-called “buffer zone”. “Because of the blockade's devastating economic impact, children are being forced to work and scavenge near the fence. Even those who are not in the so-called ‘buffer zone’ unilaterally imposed by Israel are being targeted by Israeli soldiers,” said Chris Gunness, Spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Michael Morpurgo, the children’s author, visited Gaza recently with Save the Children and witnessed a child being shot at the border himself. Excerpts from his diary detailed the event: “9.30am: Sitting in the car – a shot from the tower, and another boy is wounded. A cry goes up from all over the wilderness of the rubble, and they run towards him, pulled him up and carry him in the racing donkey cart surrounded by his friends. The scavengers are angry now and are more angry by the minute. It’s a stand off. 10.30am: It’s psychological warfare here all the time. Meanwhile I’ve left back behind me in Gaza City all those families and children I’ve met who are permanently shut in, who endure day by day the privations and humiliations on them by the blockades. That’s all I’ve learnt here, in spades, with my own eyes – I’ve seen what war does to children on both sides.” The Israeli blockade has also ravaged the economy, leaving many families struggling to get by. Aid agencies, including Save the Children, are now receiving reports from communities that children are dropping out of school to take up whatever work they can find to help earn money.
Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza prevents construction materials from entering the Strip, meaning that thousands of homes destroyed during the conflict have not been rebuilt.“Blockade must end immediately”
Deadly force used against children
Children dropping out of school to help support families