This Saturday 4th April 12pm join us to stand with Palestinian children on Market Street in Manchester City Centre for a stall and rally on the weekend of Palestinian Children’s day.
Not only will we remember the more than 20,000 Gaza children murdered by Israel in 2 years, but also the children left behind – 1000s of them orphaned, paralysed and injured and nearly all of them malnourished, homeless and unimaginably traumatised.
We will also stand with children in the rest of Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iran where Israel as we speak is destroying family after family using the most terrifying weaponry ever created. Just 2 weeks ago the Israeli army opened fire on a Palestinian family coming home from shopping in Tammun in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. As they arrived in their car, Israeli forces killed father Ali Bani Odeh (37) mother Waad (35), and their sons Mohammed (5) and Othman (6). The two older brothers Khaled (11) and Mustafa (8), witnessed their family’s death, were beaten but survived.
In Gaza Israel’s 2-year bombing murdered over 1000 Palestinian babies – children under 1 years old.
Of the 351 children currently languishing in Israeli prisons, most have not been charged and torture has been reported as “systematic”.
For any who have met them, they would see that so many children in Gaza, despite Israel’s 18-year medieval siege of Gaza that imprisons the population, were full of life and fun and love and adventure. They leave an unforgettable mark on those that were lucky enough to spend time with them. This is a testament to the love and care of their families and communities despite repeated Israeli attacks that destroyed so many Palestinian lives in 2009, 2012, 2014, the 2018 Great March of Return and the Unity Uprising of 2021.
There are no guarantees that Gaza’s children will recover again after Israel’s crimes of all crimes against them – a genocide in full view of the world.
But we must do everything to give them that chance, and we can never leave them alone again to face what the worst of the world will throw at them.
Stand with the children of Palestine and all child victims of Israel’s violence, Saturday 4th April 12pm, Market St.
