Civilians used as cannon fodder

"A Grad rocket hit a kindergarten standing empty in Ashkelon," said the news anchor at the opening of a recent radio newscast, and I thought of the number of heartbeats missed during that split second between the words "kindergarten" and "empty."

What cruelty it takes to indiscriminately fire rockets at civilians; what could have happened but was luckily avoided this time; and what had already taken place in the past, leaving civilians in Sderot and other places in Israel dead or injured.

A picture in the newspaper shows Hilmi al-Samuli bemoaning the death of his two little children, who were killed along with their cousin in an Israeli strike this week. The father's grief cries out from the photo. Cries out like only a parent who lost his child can. Cries out – but who is listening?

The IDF repeatedly declares it never intended for an Israeli shell to kill children, but, in light of the end result, this is irrelevant. For the al-Samuli family, as for dozens of other families in Gaza, this really doesn't matter anymore.

In Gaza and in southern Israel civilians have become cannon fodder. But the IDF's cannons are much deadlier, and until now about half of the people killed in IDF strikes in Gaza are apparently innocent bystanders: Over 200 dead civilians, at least 80 of them children. And the killing continues.

Gaza isn't a shooting range and its inhabitants' blood isn't less red than that of the residents of Ashkelon, Beersheba or Sderot. There are things that, even during war, one must not do. The government's promises that civilians in Gaza are not targets are meaningless in light of the scope, duration and brutality of the actions carried out there.

Is it naïve to try and safeguard human rights during wartime? Perhaps. The campaign launched by the human rights groups in Israel against the harm done to civilians everywhere did not save the life of even one innocent Israeli or Gazan. But it is our duty to cry out against the violation of the right to life, against the disregard to the sacredness of human life and against the deterioration towards a bloody war that only becomes crueler by the day.

The rocket fire emanating from Gaza and directed at civilian population is clearly unacceptable. But this shooting does not justify the harm inflicted on the civilian population in Gaza. Massive strikes at the heart of densely populated areas are simply immoral. There isn't, and can't be, any justification for attacks on civilian population, in Gaza or any other place.

No one can help the dead anymore, but we can help the millions of innocent people living in southern Israel and in Gaza, children, women and men: Refrain from attacks that jeopardize civilians. Avoid damaging civilian infrastructure. Renew the supply of fuel, medical equipment, food and other provisions to the Gaza Strip, in order to alleviate the severe shortage in Gaza that has worsened the distress of the residents. Allow rescue teams to work and enable safe and immediate evacuation of the injured to hospitals, and the transfer of those who cannot receive the proper medical care in the Strip into Israel for treatment.

To show responsibility, compassion, humaneness. To have mercy on the lives of human beings. To be human.

The writer is the executive director of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel