BETRAYING GOD: Gaza’s children
“A crime against a child is a crime against humanity”. Suela Janina, Albania’s delegate to the UN
On June 7 UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has added the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to the global list of top perpetrators of war crimes against children. Few lists are so damning and condemning. To appear on a list that contains the top nations guilty of crimes against children is not only a shame and a war crime, but a betrayal of God.
The tenderness and care Jesus showed for children is an expression of God’s heart toward the small, the weak, and the vulnerable. To betray this tenderness is a betrayal of God, regardless of who you are, where you live, what you confess and what your reasons are. Israel and Hamas stand equally guilty before a sovereign God and will have to face the judgement of a God who fights for the weak and vulnerable (Psalm 82:3-4[1]).
Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told the 15-nation organ that the Secretary-General’s report on this topic (document A/77/895-S/2023/363) covers 27,800 violations against 18,890 children in 2022 — 8,630 killings or mutilations, 7,622 instances of recruitment and 3,985 abductions.
More than 15,500 children have now been killed in Gaza alone since the start of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This is nearly double the 8,630 children that were killed in all global conflicts during 2022. The last three months of 2023 alone saw the deaths of children in Gaza account for nearly 40% of all minors killed in conflicts globally.
Israel was subsequently informed that it is now included in the annual report on children killed in armed conflict, which will be sent to the UN Security Council on June 14. The list also includes the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, according to a diplomatic source.
The war “presents an unprecedented scale and intensity of grave violations against children, with hostilities leading to an increase in grave violations of 155%,” Guterres wrote in the report. The UN said both the Israeli army and Hamas’s military wing, as well as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are not doing enough to protect children in Gaza.
Instead of bemoaning the numbers and a deep sense of remorse, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan recorded a video of himself making a phone call from his office expressing outrage at the UN decision, calling the IDF “the most moral army in the world.” “The only one who is blacklisted today is the secretary-general, whose decisions since the war started, and even before, are rewarding terrorists and incentivizing them to use children for terror acts… Shame on him!” Erdan concluded.
Yes, the numbers do not reflect the complicity of a war against terror and a battle for freedom. It’s complicated, nobody can deny it. When children are used as human shields (by Hamas) and trucks as decoyed humanitarian aid (by the IDF) there are no easy answers or quick solutions. But humanity cannot give up. For a problem so big and so complicated we need to begin somewhere, anywhere, but we must begin. We have no option.
As you read this, consider your humanity. Consider for one moment that you, as a parent, a grandparent, a mother or a father, live in Gaza. You have experienced, even witnessed, the horrifying death of your most precious precious gift – the essence of your soul and the vision of your future. You are not interested in reasons for why the bombs fell or excuses that Hamas is to blame. The emptiness in your heart will not be satisfied. Your tears are your only companion. How would you like the world to respond? Not by blaming the UN for the report, like Israel did. Not by using more children in a fight for freedom, like Hamas does.
There are overarching problems that our generation may not ever be able to change, but there are also children suffering here and now. They need us and we have the capacity to change their lives.
If, at this stage where all the evidence is pointing to gross human abuses against the vulnerable in Gaza, you still choose to stand with Israel and defend the military forces of the IDF, you have lost your ability to speak peace, bring healing and reflect Christ. In all honesty, I would suggest you have lost your humanity
Remember Proverbs 31:8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.
For practical involvement visit: https://dialogos.co.za/projects/ and scroll down to Project Hope Gaza
https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15343.doc.htm
[1]Psa 82:3-4 Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.