Khaberni - Users on social media platforms circulated a photo documenting the moment a frightened Palestinian child hides behind a concrete base of an electricity pole, while returning from school coinciding with an incursion by Israeli occupation forces into the town of Zawiya, west of the city of Salfit in the West Bank.
The circulated photo, which has not yet revealed its source or the identity of its photographer, shows the child cowering with his small body and school backpack behind the post, in an attempt to hide from the view of an Israeli military patrol that was executing a raid in the town’s neighborhoods, using the concrete block as a temporary refuge on his way home.
The image sparked a widespread wave of anger and emotion across digital platforms, as activists and Twitter users considered it a vivid embodiment of the reality of childhood in Palestine, and a documentation of how the simplest daily details, like the school route, become a risk enveloped with fear and constant anxiety for children's lives.
In this context, commenting on the scene, Zaher Abu Hussein, a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and the International Federation of Journalists, wrote "A child carrying his backpack returning from school, but instead of looking for his mother's embrace, he is searching for a post to hide behind from the soldiers of the occupation in Zawiya town west of Salfit.. This is how childhood is stolen: a backpack on the back, and a fear bigger than his age".
