If 2-year-old Palestinian kid's murder doesn't wake us up, what will?

By Sarah Wilkinson

Social media is replete with heartbreaking images of a two-year-old Palestinian child who lost the battle with life days after being shot in the head by the marauding Israeli regime forces in the occupied West Bank.

If the gruesome murder of this innocent kid, Mohamed Al-Tamimi, doesn’t jolt the world out of blissful slumber, maybe the fact that on the day of his burial the Israeli regime handed a home demolition order to his bereaved and distraught family as they were returning from the graveyard will pull on the heartstrings? No?

Then please tell me, what will?

The international community — that’s all of us by the way — is watching Palestinian families bleed to death one by one, nonchalantly stepping over their bodies, climbing over the rubble of their demolished homes, passing by the maimed and amputated and blinded, and carrying on as if nothing but the air has been hitting the fan.

And, if this targeted and depraved act of executing a toddler doesn’t unseat the foundations of the ‘ignore-the-apartheid-clan’, then I ask you, in all honesty, what will?

What is worse than the deliberate cold-blooded killing of an innocent child? What could possibly be more diabolic?

The Israeli army, quick to try and vindicate itself, claimed the little boy and his father were caught in the crossfire, but witnesses say this was not the case.

“There was no crossfire,” says Miko Peled. “It’s all a lie: the Israeli soldiers did it on purpose.“  I have no ounce of doubt that this isn’t true.

During the fateful attack on the village of Nabi Saleh, Israeli regime troops also shot Bilal Tamimi, a journalist trying to report on the Israeli raid, which left five other residents wounded.

They shot his hand so he couldn’t continue filming. It doesn’t end here. They also threatened to shoot the boy’s mother if she didn’t “back off” from the slumped bundle of her bleeding son and leave them to continue their reign of terror.

Those duties would involve actively delaying the ambulances, hoping the wounded all terminally bleed out so their testimonies could never be told or heard.

But there are so many young whose lives were brutally cut short by the regime.

12-year-old Mohammad Al-Durrah, shot by Israeli snipers and killed in his father’s lap. 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir, forced by Israelis to drink petrol and burnt alive. 7-year-old Hajar Al-Bahtini, bombed to death by the Israelis in her own home.

The list goes on. 15-year-old Muhammad Balhan, shot in the head and killed by Israeli police while buying groceries. 15-year-old Mustafa Ali Sabbah, shot by Israeli troops in the heart. Omar Awadin, shot in the back by Israeli undercover agents while riding his bike. 5-year-old Alaa Qaddom killed by an Israeli missile. 7 year-old Rayyan Yasser Suleiman, chased by Israeli soldiers until his heart stopped.

There simply isn’t the space on the page to re-tell the stories of 75 years worth of killing — child killing. Which horrific murder made the world stand mute in horror and say enough?

None of them.

In fact, since the year 2,000, at least 2,270 Palestinian children have died at the hands of the Israeli regime; many of them met with agonizing slow deaths; some were instant; some suffered for years on life support; some never made it as far as a hospital.

Some others were killed before they had learned to walk — all of them died without knowing what peace looks like, what a sky empty of drones sounds like, or what a street empty of gun-wielding occupiers might be like to play in.

Two-year-old Mohammed Al-Tamimi had barely learned to talk. Clinging to his father for life, the last thing he saw was the barrel of an Israeli assault rifle.

No one knows what his last thoughts could have been — what terror he felt. He could have become a doctor or an engineer, or simply a big loving and caring brother to another sibling. He could have just been. But he was Palestinian. And for that, even if you’re only two, the penalty is death.

It’s not going to stop. Forget that our countries make the bombs and the bullets; forget that our leaders are invested in the war industry; forget the money that our governments plow into the Israeli killing machine — because our silence is the diesel that drives the motor.

Rest in Peace Mohamed Al-Tamimi. The world failed you. Humanity failed you.

Sarah Wilkinson is a UK-based activist. She has been a supporter of Palestine for over 40 years, and a vocal campaigner for Palestinian freedom since the First Intifada.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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