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Israel's war on orphans in pictures

Hebron orphanage

Punitive measures against orphans will never win the hearts and minds of the Palestinians, and will only strengthen the extremists

Seth Freedman

May 1, 2008 8:00 AM

Supporters of the Israeli authorities love to blame the country's poor reputation as being a result of woeful PR, believing that all that is required to redress the balance is a slick hasbara campaign. However, given the harsh reality of the occupation, to suggest that a superficial gloss job would do the trick is to totally miss the wood for the trees.

I found as much on Sunday, when I went to Hebron as a guest of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), who are desperate to highlight the plight of a Palestinian orphanage threatened with closure by the IDF. For nearly a month, the scores of children have been living with a sword of Damocles over their heads, after the army issued an eviction order, claiming that the Islamic Charitable Society (ICS) - which runs the orphanage - is a front for Hamas.

According to an army spokesman, ICS "masquerades as a charity organisation in order to cover its activities of increasing support of the Hamas terror network", and as such any property connected to the charity must be seized in order to maintain the "general order ... and security of the area". To that end, the IDF ordered several facilities on the site to be evacuated, setting April 28 as the final deadline before they would begin the closure.

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