There is a level of sickness in any occupation that leads to the most vile acts. One only needs to read of the actions of Nazi soldiers or the US in Vietnam or the British in Iraq to know that.

But Israel’s occupation of Gaza reached new heights earlier this year. One example was the way that Israeli soldiers proudly displayed tee-shirts with slogans like one bullet, 2 dead (referring to a pregnant woman). Another example below is the daubing of graffiti on a child’ doll.

Tony Greenstein

After seeing photos of children’s bodies shredded by Israeli bombs and others burnt by phosphorous beyond recognition, I did not expect to be enraged by a photo of a graffitied doll.

Yet, I stared in horror at the smeared doll in page 10 of Palestine NEWS [Autumn 2009]. The writing on the doll’s head read zona in Hebrew, which translates to: “prostitute”. The Israeli soldiers’ violation of a doll, a symbol of childhood, reveals they particularly targeted children.

The despicable act of Israeli troops writing “prostitute” on Marryam’s doll, not only exposes the depth of Israeli soldiers’ hatred and dehumanisation of Palestinian children, but it gives us insight into the extent the Israeli ground troops took perverse pleasure in their killing spree of Palestinians in Gaza.

The horror and terror is seen in Marryam’s face – see photo attached.

Marryam’s violated doll should be included in a museum dedicated to the Israeli atrocities, which we should endeavour to help establish one day, as a memorial to the suffering of Palestinians.

The caption under the photo of the doll in Palestine NEWS magazine [published by PSC] erroneously states the word was “nobody” instead of “prostitute”.

Yael Kahn
Chair of Islington Friends of Yibna [IFY]
[email protected]