Refugee Voices

Palestinian Kids Express Their Anger and
Frustration to UN Officials

"We feel helpless, we need to do something to support our friends in Palestine," said a young person from Shatila, expressing his anger at pictures portraying the deaths of Palestinian children in the Intifada. "What shall we do? Go demonstrate? We have been demonstrating for months but our voice was not heard!" "We are just wasting our time," replied another. "We need to do something that makes our cries heard," said another. "We need to have answers to our questions about the reasons the world is not moving to save us and about the injustices falling upon us as Palestinian refugees."

 The idea came up of presenting a letter to UN offices, in order to remind them of their responsibilities towards Palestinian children. Before writing, the young people were asked what they wanted to include in the letter. They started to list a series of questions, while talking about their feelings and watching the news about the Israeli brutality against Palestinian children. The children started to name the children martyrs. Surprisingly, they recollected the names of many of the martyrs and how they were killed. Then, they were asked about children's rights, as defined by the UN, that were violated by the Israelis. The children listed these rights for inclusion in the letter.

A series of meetings was held with the children to discuss how the letter should be presented to the UN. Eventually, the idea emerged of producing a "BLACK BOOK" which would include the names of children martyrs in Palestine and photos from the Intifada, in addition to the letter they had already written. While trying to choose the pictures of children involved in the Intifada one of the children cried out: "We should also portray ourselves in a different way. We have to tell the world that we know many things other than throwing stones and fighting for our rights. They always accuse us of being terrorists. We need to show the world that we have dreams and hobbies, that we can dance and play musical instruments and study."

In the book, pictures of children in the camp were displayed next to photos showing children involved in the ongoing Intifada, as well as pictures reflecting the Israeli brutality against them. The en-product was a 10-page book which included, in addition to the photos and the letter, a list of the names of all children killed, the dates of their deaths, their ages, their places of residence and how they were killed. It also included slogans supporting the children's right to return to Palestine. These slogans were presented alongside the pictures of children participating in the Intifada and the pictures of children reading and playing the bagpipes and dreaming in Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon.

"That is because we want to show the world that we did not forget Palestine, we are struggling to return, as the pictures of the Intifada children show, and we are also studying, dreaming, and playing to return," said one of the children while working on the book. This fact was highlighted when the book was presented to UNESCO. "We can hold a stone and throw it, but our hands can also play the bagpipes," said a Palestinian refugee child to Victor Billeh, the Director of UNESCO in Beirut, pointing to a picture of a child from Shatila camp doing just that.
Aidun, Lebanon, a group of activists working on the right of return and the NGO Forum, a conglomeration of non-governmental organizations working in the Palestinian refugee camps, organized the activity and the meeting with UNESCO.

During the meeting some 35 children mainly from Shatila camp made emotional appeals for Palestinian independence, and for the UN to help Palestinian children, while presenting the BLACK BOOK on behalf of all Palestinian children to UNESCO Director, Victor Billeh. Before reading the letter, one of the young members of the delegation said: "I have worked on many books, but working on this book was so different, we developed it with our hearts, we felt it. It is so dear to us." A question-and-answer session following the book presentation lasted more than an hour, with most of the children raising their hands to vocalize long-held complaints. "If you happened to be born a Palestinian refugee and saw all these kids being killed and saw that the United Nations wasn't doing anything, how would you feel?" asked 14-year old refugee child.

"That there's no justice in the world?"
Another eager participant, refuted Billeh's contention that the reason UN resolutions concerning Palestinian rights have not been implemented was beca se "it takes time to implement resolutions." She argued, "Why is it then that the resolutions for Israel have been always implemented, but those for Palestine have been pending for 53 years now?"about their hard lives as refugee children in  Lebanon. Billeh's definition of UNESCO as an organization aiming at providing education to all the children of the world instigated the children to ask about their rights to education and led to a discussion about UNRWA educational policies. They focused on the use of violence against children and requested that this issue be addressed immediately since it is causing many students to drop out from schools.

"The children feel bitter about the killings of kids and need to express themselves to release some of their anger," Billeh said at the end of the meeting. "I am going to contact UNRWA to draw Carried away by the opportunity to have their grievances listened to for the first time, the outspoken teenagers could not relax during a refreshments session but instead engaged UNESCO representatives in a discussion on how to return Palestine to the Palestinians.

"We are against the use of violence," said one of the children "but if the UN does not assume its responsibilities towards helping us get our rights back peacefully nobody will blame us if at the end we use violence to return to Palestine." Play the best juegos friv games.
The children also took the chance to talk their attention to the kids' concerns about the education system and will pass on the book to headquarters in Paris and other UN agencies and international Human rights organizations," he added. Before leaving, one of the children requested that 100 more sessions like this be organized so that Palestine will finally be liberated and "because we didn't vocalize all that we have in our hearts," she noted.