Shabbat is over. We said Havdallah prayers and doused the candle in wine. I turned my computer back on, and found this….
Ahmed Ismail Katib, age thirteen, was shot by IDF soliders last week. He was playing with a toy gun he’d recieved for the holiday of Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan. Soldiers mistook it for a real gun, and shot him in the chest and the head.
Yedioth reports today:
The parents of a Palestinian boy who died from his wounds in a Haifa hospital on Saturday said that they have decided to donate his organs for implants “for the sake of peace between the two people…"
Mustafa Makhamid, Ahmed’s uncle, told Ynet that “Ahmed was a wonderful and smart little kid who just wanted to play. We want to donate his organs to all the children of Israel whom we consider our children. Enough blood spilling. We hope that we will start a new process that will exceed all others and end blood spillage.”
Mustafa said Ahmed was the fourth son of a family of six who excelled at school where he drew pictures of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. “We still can’t digest that he was killed from IDF fire,” the uncle said…
MK Mohammad Barakeh (Hadah Ta’al) who was by the boy’s bed when his soul left this world, supported the family’s decision to donate Ahmed’s organs to Israeli children urgently in need of organs.
“The family’s father said that he is interested in showing his humanity as opposed to the recklessness of the murderers. He knows that the organs will be donated to Israelis yet he doesn’t care. A kid is a kid. The father took a tough decision and I supported it from the beginning,” said Barakeh, who noted that the father had consulted Muslim religious figures who gave their consent.
Readers may recall that the biblical figure of Ishmael, from whom I assume the boy’s middle name was derived, was Abraham’s son by Hagar, Sarah’s maid. When Sarah became pregnant, she prevailed upon Abraham to send Hagar into the desert to protect her own son’s birthright. The Jewish lineage, of course, continued through Isaac. Ishmael, born in exile, survived, a symbol of the dispossessed.
The parents of Ahmed Ismail Katib have honored God, honored us all, with their incredible generosity.
This word does not appear in the Hebrew dictionary, but an old-new weapon from the sophisticated arsenal directed against the Palestinian people has again suddenly emerged. While not deadly, it is fiendish: the sonic boom.
The world’s best air force is amusing itself by creating fear in a helpless and terrified civilian population. Twenty-nine such booms were sounded during a period of four days in September, and this practice was repeated again recently, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, which jointly submitted a High Court petition on this matter. If there is such a thing as an unequivocal case of collective punishment, then this is it.
Parents in Gaza speak about the fears their children have suffered in recent weeks, the nightmares and bed-wetting. Husbands tell about pregnant women who have experienced panic attacks. The windowpanes in homes shatter one after another. Here is a scoop: Palestinians can also be "trauma victims."
These booms, whose only purpose is to sow fear among innocent civilians, have been added to the artillery shells pounding the Gaza Strip and the daily barrage of liquidation missiles, which indiscriminately kill armed militants and innocent people. The fact that the air force is employing this weapon mainly late at night, or early in the morning, when masses of pupils are making their way to school, only makes its wickedness more conspicuous.
guns and kids
I’ve never been one of those people who thought kids should never be given toy guns. But two events have changed my thinking on this: the one you write about, and the appearance at my door on Halloween of a kid dressed up, literally, as a tank with full armament. (It was some sort of blown-up plastic costume which made him look like a tank with only his head sticking out of the top, and his feet on the bottom.)I was tempted to refuse to give him a treat — but then I thought, he’s only a kid. His parents are responsible for this.
I am not in any way meaning to imply that the parents of the child who was killed by the IDF are at fault because their child had a toy gun. The IDF ought not to be shooting to kill at little children under any circumstances, even those of high tension. But I guess I’m commenting more on the notion that the manufacture and sale of such toys conveys that war and killing are games, play, pretend. What we should learn from the incredible and very moving gesture of these Palestinian parents is that we need to turn all of the guns and tanks back into plowshares.
Guns are not toys
Yes, you’re right. Among other things, I feel for the soldiers who did this, who have to go to sleep at night knowing they shot an innocent boy. We should not have put them in this position.
I rather regret the “And us?” part of the post above. It’s true that Israel is engaging in collective punishment of the people of Gaza, terrorizing children who have nothing to do with any violence against Israelis. But to highlight it here trivializes the real message: not the misdeeds of the IDF, but the amazing caring and forgiveness of the parents’ act.
Andrew Schamess
guns and kids
Steffi, I can see on the one hand your concern about this sort of plaything, yet on the other, you must remember that there is a tradition in the Mediterranean culture (even from the shores where my father was a lad, in Sicily, where Carnevale was what would here be Eid Mubarak) that at certain festivities, the toy that is given is indeed a toy gun. There are not necessarily connotations of war (although in Palestine and Israel, with the IDF everywhere, the connection must be made), but of something closer to playing bandit. It is usual that there are two children, each with a toy gun, and they see who is the most clever bandit, getting to somehow make claim to a treasure that has been decided upon.
I think that any attempts at suggesting something about the boy, the family or the society from this is really wrong, (which I realise you are not doing at all, although I have heard it quite a few times since this tragedy, and I state this here merely because this is being discussed) because this is the context of the Mediterranean, and this cultural tradition may continue as long as boys continue.
thecutter (peacepalestine)