Washington Report, January/February 2006, pages 24-25

On the Ground in Gaza

Give Up or…! The Games Gaza’s Children Play

By Mohammed Omer

THE GUNFIRE has lasted for hours on the streets of the poor refugee camp. Six Israeli soldiers confront a handful of Palestinian militants. They are taking cover in a narrow alley. The militants throw a grenade into the knot of soldiers. The explosion is deafening, but the Israeli soldiers keep firing.

“Wait, wait, wait,” yells a masked militant, “that was a direct hit—you’re dead!”

“Not this time,” the Israeli captain shouts back. “It landed five meters short of our position.”

“Six meters!” his lieutenant corrects him.

“It did NOT!” screams the militant.

The captain’s younger sister, watching from a nearby doorway, starts laughing while the militants hold a strategy conference. Two of the resistance fighters have to leave to study for the next day’s math quiz.

Welcome to Palestine’s most popular children’s game. Sometimes the kids call it “Jews and Arabs,” or “Army versus Militants,” or “settlers and villagers”—there are a variety of names, but the pattern is always the same—hours-long mock battles with amazingly realistic sound effects. After five years of witnessing real warfare played out in their own neighborhoods, most children throughout the Gaza Strip have become experts at imitating the whine of sniper bullets, automatic-weapons fire, grenade explosions, missile strikes. Young boys in the villages and refugee camps have always played war games occasionally, but during the intifada the bloodless battles have become wildly popular.

Roles are not rigid. The boy who is a cruel occupation soldier one day, bullying and harassing Palestinians at an imaginary checkpoint, can switch the next day to playing a resistance fighter, bravely doing his best to inflict damage on the Israeli army, despite their superior weaponry.

Sometimes the realism is uncanny. “Boina, boina—stop, stop!” Nadder Hassan, 13, was screaming at an “enemy” Palestinian. He continued “interrogating” the boy, playing a militant prisoner, with an excellent command of Hebrew idioms—which the other gameplayer understood readily. After all, these boys had heard all these words and phrases used by real occupation forces during incursions into their neighborhoods.

Khalil Abed, 13, from the opposing team of resistance fighters, quickly ran out of ammunition and was “captured.” Soon, the “Israelis” ordered him to undress and lie on the ground, where he was blindfolded. Other real-life situations sometimes enter the game: ambulance drivers pleading to pass a checkpoint to save the life of a critically ill patient; or civilians telling the soldiers in vain of their lost relatives, their lost land. The children pride themselves on the degree of verisimilitude they achieve, but adults who overhear the play-acting often find it unbearable to listen. It is far too accurate a replica of what they have suffered under the occupation. They are horrorstruck that these youngsters can imitate the sounds of weapons so perfectly, not to mention the best and worst behavior of occupier and occupied alike.

Suliman, a 13-year-old from Rafah’s Al Shabura camp, was playing the part of an Israeli soldier in one of the narrow alleys—barely three feet wide—between tiny houses. “Of course it’s my favorite game!” he said, then broke off abruptly to hit the ground—the “militants” were throwing stones. He was “shooting” the enemy with a realistic plastic rifle, and only continued the interview when his four “enemies” were officially dead. Just why had he chosen to buy the toy rifle? “Because I see one just like it every day,” he explained. “It’s the model the Israeli soldiers always carry.”

But why, he was asked, this game of all possible games? “Look at the children my age in other Arab countries,” Suliman replied. “They have playgrounds, parks, swings, seesaws, sports fields—they have all kinds of entertainments. But for me, there’s nothing like that. No playground, no place to play soccer. The gun and the war game we invent is the only thing available.”

“But remember,” interjects Mahmoud, who might be a year or two older, “we play this game professionally because we lived through the Israeli war. I can differentiate between the sounds of tanks, bombs, or mortars, I can imitate an M16 or any other weapon the Israelis use.”

During lulls in the game’s action, the players chatted. When asked if they considered other games more interesting, all agreed readily. “Of course!” one said immediately. “Where there are computer games, parks, soccer fields, playgrounds for us—all of them would be better than this ‘Jews and Arabs’ game. But when there’s nothing else, then ‘Jews and Arabs’ is our favorite.”

Dr. Fadel Abu Hien, a psychology professor at Gaza City’s Al Aqsa University, suggested there were deeper reasons for the popularity of war games. “It’s a way to have some feeling of power in a real-life situation where they are powerless,” he said. “Almost all children in Palestine have seen people killed, injured, have been exposed to the increased Israeli aggression of rocket attacks, shelling, sniper fire. That inevitably encourages mock-violent games. If a boy can ‘fire’ the same weapon as the occupier, if he can imitate the sound of a mortar or rocket which he sees as the Israeli source of power, then he ‘owns’ that power too and feels more in control. It’s also a way to vent anger and act out a symbolic revenge. Children’s play always reflects both their environment and their own emotions.”

“Intuitively,” Dr. Abu Hien continued, “the children playing these games are trying to strike a balance between fear and horror, and a wish to strike back. That’s why most players take on a variety of parts at different times. It’s understandable they strive for highly realistic playacting. The bomb and rocket attacks usually occur at night, and most of these games are played at night too.”

Of course, the biggest winners in this popular children’s game are not the boys playing soldier, nor the families who are annoyed by the noises, but the manufacturers who stamp “Israel” and “Made in China” on the toy bombs and guns for sale in every market in Gaza. The Israeli customs authorities who control every item imported have no problem promptly clearing case after case of realistic toy weaponry, while shipments of food and medicine can be tied up in red tape for weeks. If the Sharon government is seeking “a partner for peace,” why is it helping Gaza’s children learn the arts of war?

Mohammed Omer reports from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, where he maintains the Web site <http://www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be contacted at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >.

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