Will canceled camps mean a deadly summer for Gaza's children?
As the Great Return March enters its 18th week, the killing of Majdi al-Satari, 12, by an Israeli sniper at the Gaza-Israel border highlights the lack of summer camps this year to keep children busy elsewhere.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — During a typical summer in Gaza, Palestinian children would be occupied attending camps, but this summer is different.
On July 28, Majdi al-Satari, 12, from the Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah, was killed by a bullet to the head fired by an Israeli sniper at a protest on Gaza's border with Israel. The protest, called "Friday of Our Martyrs' Children," was part of the Great Return March, which has entered its 18th week. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that a young man, Ghazi Abu Mostafa, was also killed and 264 others injured.
Satari had been participating in the border protests since they began on March 30. On the day he died, Satari, along with neighbors and friends, took the bus from Shaboura to the symbolic refugee camps set up by the Higher National Commission of the Great Return March and Breaking the Siege, consisting of representatives of the various Palestinian factions taking part in the protests.
Majdi's mother, Kholoud al-Satari, told Al-Monitor, “I knew that the Israeli army makes no distinction between a child and a man on the border. I had forbidden Majdi from going to the marches of return but to no avail. His curiosity was stronger than anything else.”
