Presenter: A finger in the air against the murdered children

This weekend I traveled to Karlstad to participate in a demonstration. To draw attention and protest the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The shoes were collected to symbolize the number of children killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023. Four pairs of shoes were my children's old shoes. First it was worn by my big cousin, then my big kid, then my little cousin, followed by my little kid. Four children stumbled into those shoes, which now stand there to symbolize Ibrahim, Hani and thousands of other children who no longer exist due to the incomprehensible choices of adults.

All is quiet at the demonstration. We hear songs that warm and break the heart, at the same time, because of the same situation. Who can sail without wind? Once upon a time I had a boat. You are my sunshine. Some die young.

Many members of the Palestine group in Karlstad read stories about some of the children who died. About the dreams they had. A life they never had the chance to experience. Many of us cry, faced with such a cruel and incomprehensible contemporary, and it is impossible not to cry. We cry because what can we do?

Then a man passes by. He has an orange plaid jacket and quick steps. He shouts something, I can't hear what. The woman standing at the microphone, who had just spoken about Hind, the six-year-old Hind who was shot dead by the Israeli army, in a taxi surrounded by her relatives who had already been killed, while she waited for help that never came, screams into the microphone. It's about children, about more than 15,000 children, who died! Unspeakable injustice! The man extends his fist in the air, raises his middle finger to us standing there, and puts on his shoes.

– Stop killing Gaza's children, some demonstrators shouted.

I wonder what was going through that man's mind as he walked. For some reason, many people don't seem to see the children of Gaza as children. They don't seem to see the people of Gaza as people.

I stood there thinking that I didn't know where to turn anymore, in this world.

Stop killing Gaza's children.

Stina Samuelsson