{"id":24853,"date":"2018-12-09T14:22:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T14:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24853"},"modified":"2018-12-09T14:22:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-09T14:22:45","slug":"us-opposes-discontinuing-support-to-saudi-led-coalition-in-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24853","title":{"rendered":"US opposes discontinuing support to Saudi-led coalition in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nGAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: When Mazen Al-Dalo took two of his young sons to see the Palestinian protests against Israel\u2019s decade-old blockade of Gaza, he knew it could be dangerous.
Rock-throwing demonstrators were being shot by Israeli soldiers, and armored Israeli jeeps were firing endless volleys of tear gas into the crowds.
But it was important to teach the boys about Palestinian history, he said, and give them a glimpse of the modern-day struggles their people face. \u201cSeeing things with your own eyes is different than reading about them in books,\u201d the 44-year-old father said, explaining his decision to take the children, aged 8 and 11, one day last April.
The family only ventured about 400 meters (yards) from the border \u2014 a spot Al-Dalo believed was safe, away from the violent confrontations. But just as he pointed to a group of Israeli soldiers atop a berm on the other side of the Israeli fence, a single gunshot rang out.
The round ripped off Al-Dalo\u2019s thumb and struck his 8-year-old son, Mohamed, in the leg \u2014 two more casualties in a simmering conflict that began last spring and has seen a staggering 948 Palestinians under the age of 18 shot and wounded by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations.
In a statement, Israel\u2019s military said it does \u201ceverything possible to avoid harming children.\u201d But Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, \u201ccynically uses Gaza residents, especially women and children, as human shields and places them at the forefront of the violent riots.\u201d
Hamas, which has orchestrated the demonstrations, denies such allegations. Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said \u201cthere is no way to prevent the people from participating. There are entire families (who go) and there is no way to prevent them.\u201d
Ever since the demonstrations began in March, children have been a constant presence among the surging crowds \u2014 some hurling stones with slingshots or burning tires, others merely watching from afar. While many are brought by parents who hold their hands and carry them on their shoulders, others make their way on their own.
Of the 175 Palestinians killed so far, at least 34 were 18 or under, according to an Associated Press count. Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry says 2,295 minors have been hospitalized, 17 of whom have had a limb amputated; at least 5,124 have been injured in all.
Young victims are not a new phenomenon in the region. In the first Palestinian uprising that began in 1987, children and teens often threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who frequently responded with live rounds. According to the Israeli human rights group, B\u2019Tselem, minors comprised about 21 percent of deaths back then. In the latest protests, that percentage is roughly the same.
The Israeli military, which deploys snipers atop pyramid-shaped bunkers positioned at regular intervals along the frontier, says it takes pains to avoid civilian casualties and only uses live fire as a last resort. But it also says it must defend against \u201cterrorist\u201d crowds hurling grenades and firebombs, and stop those who penetrate or damage the fence.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups argue that under international law, the use of live ammunition can only be justified in the face of imminent death or serious injury. Israel argues that is exactly what its forces face. One Israeli soldier was killed by a Hamas sniper during a demonstration last July, and at least six have been wounded.
Video images circulating on social media, however, have also shown unarmed protesters being shot, including some struck while running away or waving the Palestinian flag, Amnesty said. One incident in September showed a 16-year-old boy being shot in the chest while waving his hands in the air; he had just hurled a stone toward the fence, but it\u2019s unclear if it had even reached it.
After another teen was shot dead in April, UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov asked in a tweet: \u201cHow does the killing of a child in #Gaza today help #peace?\u201d Mladenov answered his own question, saying \u201cIt doesn\u2019t! It fuels anger and breeds more killing.\u201d
The protests have been fueled by desperate living conditions in Gaza, a place most residents are prohibited from leaving. More than a decade since Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza, unemployment is over 50 percent, tap water has become undrinkable and electricity is sporadic. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from importing weapons.
When the demonstrations began, Raed Abu Khader told his 12-year-old son Mohammed to stay away, and the boy promised he would. But on Aug. 24, Khader received an urgent phone call from a friend: Mohammed had been shot in the leg at one of the demonstrations held that day.
\u201cHe shouldn\u2019t have been there,\u201d Abu Khader said of the boy, who has been unable to move his left leg since and fears it will be amputated. \u201cBut the Israelis should only be shooting to scare children off \u2014 not hit them.\u201d
It\u2019s unclear what Mohammed was doing when the shooting took place. Speaking in a wheelchair surrounded by friends on a Gaza street, he boasted that he had just hung a Palestinian flag on the fence when gunfire rang out. Later, lying in his darkened home with his distraught father looking on, the teen could not answer when asked where he was. Staring at the ground, his brown eyes welled with tears.
Abu Khader said the boy had been transported to the protest site via one of the Hamas-organized buses that park outside Gaza\u2019s mosques every Friday. At the end of the ride was a spectacle that is consistently part-war, part-festival: cultural shows, corn on the cob, balloons and Palestinian kites laden with trails of flaming embers meant for Israeli farms. Plus the weekly confrontation itself: Palestinians armed with stones and firebombs battling armed Israeli forces flying spider-like drones equipped with tear gas.
\u201cThey see their friends going, and they want to go,\u201d Abu Khader said. \u201cThey think it\u2019s a game. They think they\u2019re going to have fun. They don\u2019t know how dangerous it is.\u201d
The round that struck Mohammed Abu Khader severed the nerves in his leg so completely, he can neither feel nor move his limb at all. If he does not get out of Gaza, his 39-year-old father says, he will likely lose his leg.
Today, the boy often cries. He no longer goes to school. His father says the boy feels useless.
Mohammed Al-Dalo, the boy whose father took him to the protest, has been similarly traumatized. His father said he is markedly quieter now.
And like Mohammed Abu Khader, his life may be changed forever.
At a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, physiotherapist Eyad Abedelaal says Mohammed Al-Dalo suffers from \u201cfoot drop.\u201d Nerve damage means he cannot move his toes up and down; the boy limps when he walks.
They will try to perform another surgery to fix the problem. \u201cBut unfortunately, this kind of nerve damage will likely last forever,\u201d Abedelaal said. \u201cIt means to walk correctly, he\u2019ll probably need special shoes for the rest of his life.\u201d
Mohammed\u2019s father, Mazen Al-Dalo, says the boy asked to go back to the protests, but he refused because he doesn\u2019t want him to get hurt again.
Still, he has no regrets. \u201cThis is the tax you have to pay to achieve the right of return,\u201d he said, referencing a deep-held desire to take back land that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from seven decades ago after the war that created Israel. \u201cNothing is free. We all have to sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: When Mazen Al-Dalo took two of his young sons to see the Palestinian protests against Israel\u2019s decade-old blockade of Gaza, he knew it could be dangerous.Rock-throwing demonstrators were being shot by Israeli soldiers, and armored Israeli jeeps were firing endless volleys of tear gas into the crowds.But it was important to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}