Collateral Damage
It continues to haunt me. That black and white image of newly dug graves – about 100 of them— the rows resembling blank squares on a crossword puzzle as seen from the sky.
On Saturday morning, students- all of them girls- had just been dropped off at the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in southern Iran by their parents. I imagine their conversations as the moms and dads hugged their daughters good-bye.
Maybe the daughters asked their mothers what they would have for dinner? Or their fathers about a sick family member? Or did they think an older sister might help them with homework?
According to some accounts, the parents rushed back moments after dropping off their children when they heard the explosions that ripped apart the school. What they found was a horror beyond words. The buildings were in shambles . More than one hundred girls between the ages of seven and 12 were dead. Bookbags covered in plaster and blood strewn in classrooms. You can imagine the rest.
At this time, it is not clear whether it was Israel or the US that dropped the bombs. But does it matter? Once again, the US is mired in a conflict with mounting “collateral damage,” an Orwellian term used to describe civilian casualties. As I write this bombs are still falling in Gaza ( despite a ceasefire) where thousands of innocent children have died or lost limbs.
The Iranian elementary school, attended by many community children, was adjacent to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard barracks, but was clearly not part of the compound.
After only five days, the war we launched has caused more than 1,000 civilian deaths, including 200 children, according to US Human Rights Watch. Yes, a brutal dictator who slaughtered thousands of his own people is dead, but so are hundreds of innocent children. So far, there have been no apologies, no acceptance of responsibility not even sorrow expressed for this horrifying loss of life from either Israel or the United States.
Instead, an officer from the US Central Command said this, “We are aware of reports concerning civilian loss resulting from ongoing military operations.”
Someone once said, “The horror of war spares no human soul; but it is the innocent children who pay the ultimate price.”
Rachel is weeping for her children.