Seven years after the crime of burning the child Abu Khdeir... and the fire of the Israeli occupation is raging by burning Palestinian childhood

Occupied Jerusalem-SANA

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the kidnapping and torture of Palestinian child Muhammad Abu Khdeir, burning him alive by Israeli settlers, and throwing his body in the forests of Deir Yassin village, west of occupied Jerusalem, in one of the most heinous crimes that reflect the brutality of the occupation and its terrorist practices against the Palestinians.

At the dawn of the fourth of Ramadan, corresponding to July 2, 2014, three settlers kidnapped the 16-year-old child Abu Khdeir in front of his house in the village of Shuafat, north of occupied Jerusalem, and took him to the bushes, where they tied him up, tortured him and forced him to drink petrol, then set him on fire while they danced, played music and had fun. Looking at the burnt martyr.

The fire that the Zionists set on Abu Khdeir’s body ignited a massive uprising throughout the Palestinian territories, which was called “the gift of the martyr Muhammad Abu Khdeir.” It also met with international condemnation and a demand to punish and hold the occupation leaders accountable for their crimes against Palestinian children. His story inspired thinkers and poets to embody it in their novels and arts.

The incident of burning the martyr Abu Khdeir is not an anomaly in the history of the Israeli settlers. Since the establishment of the occupation entity, the Zionists have relied on the arson weapon as a primary weapon in killing and displacing, as happened in the Tirat Haifa crematorium on July 25, 1948, when the Haganah gangs burned dozens of Palestinians alive up to The Dawabsheh family was burned in the village of Duma, south of Nablus, one year after the burning of the child Abu Khdeir.

In the record of the arson massacres, the occupation forces used incendiary bombs and white phosphorous in bombing the Gaza Strip between 2006 and 2014, causing the death and burning of dozens of Palestinians, most of whom were children.

Palestinian holy sites were also not spared from arson crimes. In 2006, two settlers set fire to the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in northern Palestine. In 2010, settlers burned a historic church on Al-Anbiya Street, west of Jerusalem, and the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem was burned in 2015, in addition to burning a mosque in the village of Al-Mughayer Sharq Ramallah and Qusra Mosque in Nablus in 2011 and Aqraba Mosque southeast of Nablus in 2018.

Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein, who heads the “Lahava” terrorist organization, announced his support for the burning of Palestinian places of worship and holy sites, which reveals the reality of the occupation authorities that facilitate and support the settlers’ crimes, as happened in the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969 and the burning of furniture of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron days before the massacre against worshipers Palestinians in 1994.

Among the crimes of arson carried out by the occupation and its settlers are burning Palestinian agricultural crops and burning their vehicles and property, especially in villages near settlement outposts in the West Bank.

And the crimes of the occupation against Palestinian childhood are a series that almost never ends. In its recent aggression on the Gaza Strip, 67 children were martyred, and more than 470 Palestinian children are in detention, in flagrant violation of all international covenants and laws.