Israel turns a football pitch into a mass grave for 13 children

Tuesday evening was unlike any other in the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon. Israel other, far more coldblooded plans for the residents there.

The boys used to gather in the enclosed pitch every day, the ball rolled between their feet, and laughter rose above the echo of light blows on the walls. Children and boys under the age of 20 came to the only place where they were allowed to be… children.

The game was exciting, simple, like their lives, crowded with hardship but full of hope. They thought of nothing but scoring a goal, winning a game, or seizing a moment of joy that makes them forget life in the refugee camp, even for a little while — but that game was never completed.

Israel strikes — the moment that changed everything

As the ball was kicked towards the goal, a terrifying explosion rang out, walls collapsed, laughter stopped, and the place was filled with dust and screams.

The playground that had been their refuge turned into a graveyard — 13 young boys who had entered the place innocently left it as martyrs.

 

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Israel claims it struck a “Hamas training compound.”

Deliberate targeting of children… from Gaza to Ain al-Hilweh

What happened on the football pitch is not an isolated incident. The scene brings to mind images of children in Gaza who were killed inside their schools, at the gates of shelters, in bread queues, and on the beach while playing football as well or flying kites.

Classrooms were targeted as if they were barracks, tents as if they were military sites, and hospitals as if they were legitimate targets. Children were always a target — in their homes, in their streets, in their little dreams that found no place to live.

Today, the same scene is repeating itself, this time in Ain al-Hilweh. It is as if targeting Palestinian children has become a constant, wherever they are: in Gaza, in the West Bank, in the camps, and the diaspora refugees.

They went to play… and returned as martyrs

These boys did not go to a battlefield, nor to a military site. They went to a football pitch.
To a small space that gave them a simple right: the right to dream… and to run after a football.

But the missile that fell on their heads ended everything — the match was over with the score rendered irrelevant. Traces of the ball remained melted on the rubble — bearing witness to a new massacre added to a long record of massacres targeting Palestinian children wherever they are.

Featured image via Quds Press