The Blood of Gaza's Children.. From the Top of the Israeli Pyramid to the Soldier in the Field: Why Don't They Care?

Since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, hardly a day passes for the residents of the Gaza Strip without hearing news of the martyrdom of dozens of innocent children, whether by aerial or artillery bombardment, even after the declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza, we still hear every day news of the martyrdom of children from the Gaza Strip, either by an Israeli sniper's bullet, or by an Israeli bombing of Hamas police and security elements in the streets of Gaza, during which children pass.

The Israeli army has become increasingly ferocious day by day, and does not care about the shedding of the blood of innocent Gaza children, justifying this to international media and human rights organizations, that the killing of children is merely unintended collateral damage of war, knowing that the Israeli army possesses the latest types of military technology that can easily detect the nature of those targeted by any Israeli bombing or sniping operation, whether they are adults or children.

But it seems that the Israeli army and its political and military leadership, from the top of the pyramid to the soldier in the field, brutally ignore the right of the Palestinian child to life and protection!

To clarify the Israeli behavior of killing Gaza children, as a result of high orders from the top of the Israeli pyramid to the ordinary soldier, it can be said that the process of killing Palestinian children, especially in the Gaza Strip, has been officially legalized through the Israeli political and military levels, which gave an open permit to any Israeli soldier in the field not to hesitate to kill Gaza children, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

What confirms the hypothesis of the open permit for Israeli soldiers to kill children in the Gaza Strip is what Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant officially stated at the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, when he literally said: "We are dealing with human animals in the Gaza Strip."

Therefore, this official statement by the Minister of Defense is considered the cornerstone of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, because this statement is an official message to Israeli officers and soldiers that the residents of the Gaza Strip and their children are monsters and deserve to be killed regardless of their age, and it is a political statement that dehumanizes the Palestinian person and his children in the Gaza Strip, in order to justify the killing of Palestinian families with their children without any mercy or compassion.

It is very clear that the use of the phrase "human animals" did not come by chance, but Gallant used it deliberately, based on the theory of "dehumanization of enemies," where according to this theory, the child victim is stripped of his humanity, and here the soldiers' minds stop activating the natural empathetic response to children, which makes killing children or civilians seem like "removing a threat" rather than killing humans.

Among the psychological theories adopted by Israeli leaders and soldiers to justify Israel's killing of Gaza children without any concern is the theory of "moral disengagement," proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura, which explains how individuals convince themselves that their moral standards do not apply in a particular context. This is done by Israel through moral justification: "We are doing this to protect our people" or "This is necessary to eliminate terrorism."

This theory clearly explains the behavior of Israeli political and military leaders in their indifference to killing Gaza children, even though these leaders are fathers, mothers, grandfathers, and grandmothers, and have children and grandchildren, and human nature naturally rejects the killing of children, whether they are children of their own country or children of enemies!

However, by adopting the theory of "moral disengagement," the Israeli political and military leadership abandoned its natural human instinct, believing that by not caring about the killing of Palestinian children, Israel would achieve victory at any cost, and that the end might justify the means!

As for Israeli intelligence officers who may be fathers or mothers and have children waiting for them at home at the end of the day, but when they see children on their computer screen passing near an Israeli assassination target, they ignore that and then issue an order to assassinate the target without any regard for killing the children near that target, they often justify the killing of children to themselves according to the rule of "displacement of responsibility," meaning that they may feel that they are merely tools executing higher orders, and therefore they may place moral responsibility on their leaders and not on themselves personally, which explains their indifference to killing Gaza children, but of course, this Israeli justification never absolves these officers of the responsibility for the deliberate killing of these innocent children.

The ordinary Israeli soldier's justification for his criminal behavior towards the children of the Gaza Strip does not differ from that of Israeli intelligence officers, as when an Israeli soldier snipes a Palestinian child near the yellow line without any concern, he does so under the rule of trying to prove himself in front of the group's harshness, meaning he tries to prove himself to his army that he is strong and does not weaken in front of the enemy and that sympathy for enemy children is considered treason. Also, the soldier acts in his dealings with Palestinian children from the standpoint of existential fear, meaning he believes that his existence is linked to the annihilation of the other, so bombing and sniping become in his view "self-defense," no matter how criminal the results lead to the killing of innocent children.

These behavioral and psychological explanations for the actions of Israelis towards the children of the Gaza Strip, from the top of the pyramid to the ordinary soldier, largely illustrate the racist and inhumane view adopted by Israelis towards the Palestinian people and their children, and indicate that the deliberate killing of Palestinian children under security pretexts and immoral psychological justifications contradicts the natural instinct of the ordinary human being who rejects the killing of innocent children even if they are classified as children of enemies.

There is no psychological, moral, or legal justification for killing innocent children, who have no power or strength, and no fault other than their bad luck that made them live in a region of conflict and continuous wars.

Therefore, it can be said to the Israeli Prime Minister who draws the army's supreme policy, and the Minister of Defense who dehumanizes the Palestinian child to justify his killing, and the Israeli Chief of Staff who issues war orders without instructions to his soldiers not to kill children, and the intelligence officer who sees a child passing in the street on his computer screen and issues an order to assassinate someone without caring about the possibility of killing this child, and the ordinary Israeli soldier who uses his rifle indiscriminately to snipe children:

You may kill as many children of the Gaza Strip as you wish! And you may justify the killing of these innocent children as you wish! And you may celebrate as you wish with an immoral toast of victory from the blood of Gaza's children! But never forget that the curse of Gaza's children will one day befall you, and that the innocent souls of Gaza's children will disturb your sleep and haunt you in your nightmares and may afflict you with a curse that will one day cause you psychological and physical illnesses, as long as you continue to kill these children, without any mercy or compassion, as nothing ever justifies the killing of innocent children, even if they are children of enemies!