From Mahnoor Makhdoom
BEIJING: China on Thursday expressed deep concerned about the escalation of Israel-Palestine conflict and called on the international community, especially countries with influence, to play an effective role and work together to cool down the situation.
“China is deeply concerned about the escalation of conflict between Israel and Palestine and the death and injuries of many innocent civilians,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing held at International Press Center (IPC).
“We urge relevant parties, Israel in particular, to stay calm and exercise maximum restraint and imme-diately end hostilities to prevent any further escalation,” he said. Commending the mediation efforts by Egypt and others, he said, “We call on the international com-munity, especially countries with influence, to play an effective role and work together to cool down the situation.
According to reports, Israel launched air strikes against the Gaza Strip on May 10, resulting in casualties. Armed groups in the Gaza Strip fired about 400 rockets at Israel. Egypt is now mediating for a ceasefire.
Ten-year-old Omar Salah could not go to school on Sunday because Israeli forces demolished it after no building permit was granted for the building. Before 4am, Israeli soldiers were at the elementary school in Jubbet adh-Dhib with bulldozers, trucks and army vehicles. By the time Omar arrived in his school uniform, the school he knew was gone.
Parents and children woke to the sound of bulldozers and ran to the school, frantically trying to pre-vent the demolition, some throwing rocks to try to deter the bulldozers.
“The soldiers came to the village and started shooting the parents and kids with bullets, tear gas and sound bombs,” Omar said a few hours later, still in a daze.
Fifty villagers were injured, and one community member lost an eye to a rubber bullet. “Everybody’s upset,” Omar said later that morning. “My brothers and sisters were crying.”
Omar, listless, stared at where his school once stood. All that was left was mounds of dirt and pools of water from broken water pipes. Children wandered aimlessly as parents with bandages wrapped over rubber bullet wounds met to figure out what to do.
“[Bezalel] Smotrich said he wants to wipe out Huwara; this is what wiping out means,” Musa Salah, Omar’s uncle, said, referring to Israel’s far-right finance minister. Smotrich runs the Israeli Civil Admin-istration (ICA), which administers Area C, the area of the occupied West Bank under Israeli civil and security control. Ninety percent of Jubbet adh-Dhib is in this zone.
Salah and his family had donated seven dunums (0.7 hectares, or 1.73 acres) of land to the community to build a school. An earlier school there was demolished just before the start of the 2017 school year, but it was rebuilt with donations from several European Union countries so 66 first- to fourth-graders could get an education.
“This is a new tactic in which they want to erase us,” Salah said, gesturing at the cleared site. “They want to leave no trace.”
