Ramzy Baroud

The scale of children killed, wounded and orphaned in modern conflicts demands more than outrage – it requires a refusal to accept their deaths as normal.

Those who had the misfortune of growing up in a war zone require no explanation. War is hell, it is true – but for children, it is something else entirely: a confusing, disorienting fate that defies comprehension.

There are children who live only briefly, experiencing whatever life manages to offer them: the love of parents, the camaraderie of siblings, the fragile joys and inevitable hardships of existence.

There are over 20,000 children in this category who have been  killed in Gaza over the span of roughly two years, according to figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry and repeatedly cited by United Nations agencies. Some were born and killed within the same short timeframe.

Others remain  buried beneath the rubble of the destroyed Strip. According to humanitarian and forensic experts cited by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), thousands of bodies are still  missing under collapsed buildings, with recovery efforts hindered by the scale of destruction and lack of equipment.

In some cases, extreme heat, fire, and the use of heavy explosive weaponry have rendered identification nearly impossible, meaning that many of these children may never be properly accounted for, let alone mourned at a grave.

These children will not have graves to be visited. And if they do, many will have no living parents left to pray for them. But we will always do.

And then, there are those who are wounded and  maimed – tens of thousands of them. Visiting Amro, the wounded son of a relative who perished along with his entire family in Gaza, I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking sights one could possibly endure: the wounded and maimed children of Gaza in a Turkish hospital.

There were a few teenagers, many without limbs. Hospital staff had adorned them with the beloved Palestinian keffiyeh. Those who could flashed the victory sign, and those who had no arms raised what remained of their limbs, as if to tell every wandering visitor that they stand for something deep and unyielding, that their losses were not in vain.

But then there were the little ones, who experienced trauma without fully comprehending even the magnitude of their tragedy. They stared in confusion at everyone – the unfamiliar faces, the incomprehensible languages spoken around them, the empty walls.

My nephew kept speaking of his parents, who were meant to visit him any day. They were both gone, along with his only brother.

I was in kindergarten in a refugee camp in Gaza when I witnessed my first military raid. The target was our school. I still recall our teachers pushing back against soldiers as they forced their way into the building. I remember them being physically assaulted, screaming at us to run toward the orchard.

We began running while holding hands with one another. We were all wearing matching red outfits with stickers on our faces – none of us had any understanding of who these men were or why they were hurting the people who cared for us.

If the killing of children in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and across the Middle East is normalised, then it will become just another accepted feature of war. And since “war is hell,” we will all move on, accepting that our children – anywhere in the world – now stand on the front lines of victimhood whenever it suits the calculations of war.

I have thought about this often in recent years – during the devastation in Gaza, the wars across the region, and the killing of students at a school in the Iranian city of Minab.

Minab is not just an Iranian tragedy; it is our collective loss. Evidence from international investigations  indicates that the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was not an accident, but the result of deliberate targeting within a broader military campaign.

Amnesty International  concluded that the school building was directly struck with guided weapons. Investigations by major outlets, alongside US military sources, suggest the site had been placed on a target list despite being a functioning school. The result was devastating: children killed, families shattered, and yet another atrocity absorbed into the relentless rhythm of war.

The US administration may deny intent as often as it wishes. But we know that the killing of children is not incidental. It is evidenced in Gaza, where the scale alone defies any claim of accident. As UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell  stated, “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children.”

That reality alone should end any debate.

I could pause here to tell you that all children are precious, that all lives are sacred, and that international law is unequivocal on this matter. I could invoke the Fourth Geneva Convention, which  states that “protected persons (…) shall at all times be humanely treated,” and that violence against civilians is strictly prohibited.

Yes, I could do all of that. But I fear it would make little difference.

Everything we have said and done has failed Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and much of our region. International law, once seen as a shield, has become little more than a point of departure for conversations about its ineffectiveness and hypocrisy.

Speaking to Palestinians about international law often generates not reassurance, but frustration and anger. So I will spare you that, too.

Instead, I want to make a call to the world.

A call on behalf of Amro, and the many others from our family who were killed, and the thousands more who perished; a call on behalf of the frightened children of the Flowers Kindergarten in my old refugee camp in Gaza: please, do not allow them to normalise the killing of children.

Do not settle for indifference, or mere concern, or even moral outrage that is never followed by action.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/02/from-gaza-to-minab-the-same-story-children-paying-the-price-of-war/

===================

Massive Israeli Assault on Lebanon Threatens U.S.-Iran Ceasefire

Over 250 people were killed in what the Israeli military said was the “largest coordinated strike” on Lebanon since March 2.

BY LYLLA YOUNES

BEIRUT, Lebanon—At 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday [08/04/2026] afternoon, Dalia, 38, was at a gym down the street from her home in the Karakas neighborhood in central Beirut when a series of massive airstrikes rocked the city.

One of the strikes hit just up the street, along the stretch of road between her apartment and the gym—a route she walks every day. The blast was so forceful it shook the building and left her ears ringing for hours. Her first thought was her daughter, who was at a basketball court across the street. When Dalia ran outside, she immediately saw thick smoke rising in the air. She sprinted to the court and found her daughter crying alongside other children.

“All the children were traumatized,” she said.

The strikes were part of a sweeping Israeli aerial bombardment campaign across Lebanon on Wednesday that came just hours after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement was announced by President Donald Trump. In a span of 10 minutes, Israel hit over 100 targets across the country, including many in densely populated neighborhoods of Beirut and its southern suburbs.

According to Lebanon’s Civil Defense, at least 254 people were killed and over 1,100 wounded in the attacks. The vast majority of the casualties were in the capital and its southern suburbs, with over 150 killed.

The Israeli assault came without warning and was by far the heaviest single wave of attacks on Lebanon over the past five weeks. In Beirut, the speed and scale of the bombardment stunned a population that has experienced successive wars, but rarely like this: strikes landing almost simultaneously, in broad daylight, while the streets were crowded. Thick black smoke billowed across the city as the sound of ambulances echoed through the streets. Authorities urged residents to remain indoors to allow emergency responders to move through the traffic-clogged roads. Dalia said the shock has yet to settle. “It’s surreal,” she said. “Did this really happen? Was it really this close to home? I really don’t think I’ve processed it yet.”

Hours after its initial spate of airstrikes, the Israeli military bombed a nine-story residential building in Beirut’s Tallet al-Khayyat neighborhood, trapping residents under the rubble. Outside of Beirut, at least ten people were killed during a funeral in the town of Shmustar in eastern Lebanon. Three girls were killed in Adloun, a coastal area in the south. A family of four was killed in the northeastern village of Mansoura. Four people were killed in a strike on the southeastern town of Majadel.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine told Al Jazeera that, “Hospitals are overcrowded with martyrs and the wounded.” Hospitals across Beirut quickly issued urgent calls for blood donations. At St. George Hospital in Geitawi, a nurse hurriedly organized donors in the blood bank, urging those with type O blood to come forward. In the hospital’s lobby and courtyard, people clutched their phones, some sobbing as a drone buzzed overhead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the “temporary ceasefire” with Iran would not include Lebanon, “and we are continuing to strike it with force.” The Israeli military bragged about what it said was the “largest coordinated strike” on Lebanon since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” on March 2, with targets struck in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and southern Lebanon. It published multiple posts online, including a graphic depicting the locations of the bombings across the country, photos of the aircraft that allegedly took part in the attacks, and photos of the Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir alongside senior military officials supposedly in an operations room at the time of the strikes. “We will not compromise the security of the residents of northern Israel. We will continue to strike with determination,” Zamir was quoted as saying.

The attacks came just hours after the ceasefire was announced for the Iran war, which included Lebanon, and threatened to unravel the agreement on day one.

President Donald Trump claimed in response to questions from PBS that Lebanon was “not included in the deal,” calling it a “separate skirmish.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later reiterated the claim at a White House press briefing, saying, “Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, that has been relayed to all parties involved in the ceasefire.”

In response, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reposted the original statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announcing the ceasefire and highlighted the text of the agreement that stipulated an “immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon.” Araghchi wrote, “The Iran–U.S. Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both. The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”

Iran’s speaker of parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf also posted a statement outlining what it said were violations of key clauses of the agreement framework, including “non-compliance with the first clause of the 10-Point Proposal regarding the ceasefire in Lebanon.”

Niku Jafarnia, a Beirut-based lawyer and researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the attacks hit densely populated areas without warning. “Under the laws of war, parties to a conflict must take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life,” she told Drop Site.

Striking “within the heart of the civilian population shows a callous disregard for the civilians living in these areas.”

===================

READ FROM TOP.

PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….