Infographic: More than 1,400 children killed by Israeli soldiers, settlers since 2000

This infographic provides some statistics about Israel’s systematic violations of the human rights of Palestinian children.
Patrick O. Strickland and Rachele Lee Richards

The Electronic Intifada’s contributor Patrick O. Strickland and New York-based graphic designer Rachele Lee Richards have produced this powerful infographic that highlights the systematic violence against Palestinian children.

Strickland contributed the following text to accompany the infographic.

Systematic violations

The photograph, taken by Dylan Collins, shows six-year-old Mousab Sarahnin, who lost his eye when an Israeli soldier shot him in the face with a steel-coated rubber bullet on 27 September 2013. According to witnesses and Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-PS), Mousab was walking with his family in Fuwwar refugee camp when he was shot — and was nowhere near demonstrations or clashes.

The statistics regarding Palestinian children in our infographic are taken from DCI-PS. The other statistics are derived from a July 2013 report published by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din: they paint a picture of total impunity for Israeli soldiers and settlers who harass and attack Palestinian children on a daily basis.

Not visible on the infographic is the alarming fact that 19 of the twenty cases in which Israeli soldiers used Palestinian children as human shields took place after Israel’s own high court ruled that it was illegal. Nonetheless, there are no documented cases of soldiers being reprimanded with jail time for this action.

“Show the world what the army does to children”

Due to size constraints, other gross violations against children are absent, such as instances of children killed by Israeli drones or the number of those threatened with sexual abuse by police officers and soldiers.

In Israel’s own education system, on the other hand, textbooks depict Palestinians as “refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists,” as reported in The Guardian in 2011. The same textbooks attempted to morally justify the killing of Palestinians as necessary for Israel’s establishment.

Furthermore, nearly half of Jewish Israeli high school students aged 16 and 17 stated that they would refuse to have an Arab teacher, according to an August 2013 poll published in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

While Israel’s political establishment continually attempts to demonize Palestinian children, the sad fact is that it tries to hide its own cultivation of hate in the education system. At the same time, the Israeli army is engaged in an ongoing process of dehumanizing and brutalizing Palestinian children.

As Sheikh Jibreen Saharnin, six-year-old Mousab’s uncle, told The Electronic Intifada in October, “Take photos. Send it everywhere in the world. Show the world what the Israeli army does to children.”