[Previous entry: "Black Man Is Attacked by Whites in Brooklyn, Police Say"] [Next entry: "Straight-shootin' George Galloway"]

08/08/2005:

"Coping With Adult Conflict in Gaza Can Be Child's Play"

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - When children in the Israeli settlements of Gaza play their newest game, "Cops and Jews," nobody volunteers to be the police officer.

Not far away, across barbed-wire fences and high walls, children in Palestinian towns and refugee camps take turns playing roles in a game called "Martyrs and Soldiers."

Rivka Kirshenzaft, 11, said the rules for "Cops and Jews" are simple.

"Everyone goes to his spot, which is considered his home, and then the police come in and yell 'Get out!' and take the Jews to jail," she said, tossing her bobbed, strawberry-blond hair. "The Jews say, 'What? Are we criminals?' Then it all ends and it's time to go back to school."

Suzan Qouta, 9, plays "Martyrs and Soldiers" with her friends in Gaza City.

"I explode myself and then I became a martyr," she said. "Then I come to life again and throw blocks, which I shoot as bullets toward the soldiers and Sharon," referring to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister.

Ahead of Israel's planned mid-August withdrawal of the nearly 9,000 settlers in Gaza, children caught in the cross-fire of warring adults are trying to make sense of the confusion and trauma with games.

For the Israeli children, the violence of drive-by shootings and mortar attacks has been joined by a new threat - that of a government-ordered eviction from their homes. Among their Palestinian counterparts, for whom tanks and attack helicopters are part of the landscape of childhood, there is a new enthusiasm for the departure of the settlers and the soldiers who protect them.

Ibrahim Nassar, 11, who lives with his mother and four younger siblings in the Deir el Balah refugee camp, has covered the walls of the living room in their two-room apartment with crayon drawings of rocket launchers and automatic rifles.

"This is what they fire at the Israelis in the settlements," he said matter-of-factly. Because of these attacks, he said, "The Israelis will leave."

His younger brothers, Ahmed, 5 and Ismail, 7, tend to stutter and do not like leaving the house. Their mother, Taghreed Nassar, said the two boys often wet their beds at night and cry out in the dark. Children are known for their resilience, even in the face of trauma, but when the threat of violence is continuing, as it often is in Gaza, it can be difficult for them to bounce back, say both Israeli and Palestinian child psychologists.
Full: nytimes.com