WEST BANK: Palestinian boys play at militants with toy plastic guns imitating the violence around them

Record ID: 376510

  • Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian boys play at militants with toy plastic guns imitating the violence around them
  • Date: 19th October 2007
  • Summary: (MER1) AROUB REFUGEE CAMP, WEST BANK (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN PLAYING WITH GUNS IN STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTINIAN CHILD HASSAN ABDEL HAKIM SAYING: "We are acting out in the Aroub refugee camp the role of Israel and fighters so this means other children throw stones at us and then we chase them and shoot them etc., and also [we act out] h
  • Embargoed: 3rd November 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA71ZSE4E4UT7XVW0ECFQYJC2FH
  • Story Text: Many Palestinian children in the West Bank are playing with plastic toy guns during the Muslim festival of Eid el-Fitr as they imitate the violence around them.
    The scrawny Palestinian boy cocks his automatic rifle and smiles as he holds it to another child's head.

    "We are acting out in the Aroub refugee camp the role of Israel and fighters so this means other children throw stones at us and then we chase them and shoot them ," says Hassan Abdel Hakim, who deftly handles an M-16 that is almost as tall as he is.
    The gun is plastic. But it looks frighteningly convincing in this West Bank refugee camp near the town of Hebron, where armed Palestinian militants roam and Israeli armoured cars frequently rumble through the rubbish-strewn streets.
    Every year during the Muslim festival of Eid el-Fitr -- which ended earlier this week -- Palestinian parents buy plastic automatic rifles for their sons. In the weeks that follow, Israeli soldiers vs Palestinian fighters dominates playtime.
    Almost every boy seems to carry a fake weapon and children reenact the shootings and arrests they witness on the streets.
    It was easy to see where children get their role models this week when hundreds of Palestinians marched through Nablus firing into the air and shouting "revenge", after an Israeli raid in the West Bank city.

    "It's very normal that he [the Palestinian child] enjoys playing with guns. You may also notice that it is mainly the boys because not many girls like playing with them, it's mainly the boys. So, why are the boys doing this? Well, it is because they see the men doing it, both the Palestinian and Israeli men carry them [guns]. It is in a child's nature to imitate their elders," says Cairo Arafat, the head of planning for children's rights in the Palestinian Authority.

    "What is not normal is to have this kind of people around the child and in my opinion, it is these things that need to to be changed. It is not normal for a child to in a community where there is always war and conflict and where he [the child] must be able to differentiate between Israel and Palestinian jeeps," adds Arafat.
    Palestinian child protection groups say children in the occupied territories -- who account for more than half of the population in Gaza and the West Bank -- are growing up scarred by the death and bloodshed they witness from an early age.
    But even more worrying are the occasions when Israeli troops mistake children carrying toy guns for militants, and shoot them.
    In July, Israeli troops killed a Hebron teenager carrying a toy gun.
    Ahmad al-Skafi's parents say the troops pumped 30 bullets into the 15-year-old then fired a rocket propelled grenade and set dogs upon him.
    Television footage showed the boy's intestines spilling out of his dead body.
    The Israeli army, which mans hundreds of checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, says its troops need to protect Israeli citizens from potential suicide bombers and militants, and cannot afford to take risks. It later said the troops mistook the toy gun for a real one.

    "Even if it was a plastic gun or, even a real gun, they could have fired one shot at him in the leg, then he would have stopped and they would see what he was carrying. But not shoot him with 30 bullets, a rocket, and set the dogs on him and everything else," says al-Skafi's mother, who now tries to stop other children from playing with plastic guns, for fear they may also be shot by Israeli troops.

    "You know even if it was a real gun and not plastic, then they still shouldn't have done all of that," she adds.
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