Humiliation can scar a boy for life
Israel refuses to allow international monitoring in the territories but the signs are clear that children are suffering

Prof. Mohammed Haj-Yahia, a senior lecturer in social work at the Hebrew University, lives in Shuafat. A few months ago he noticed, not far from his home, a boy of about seven, with a knapsack on his back standing and crying. Haj-Yahia stopped and asked the boy why he was crying.

The boy pointed to a Border Police jeep standing at the bottom of the road and said that when he passed by the soldiers, they told him to stop and made him sing "Hummus, ful, ahla, Mishmar, Hagvul" (hummus, beans, way to go, Border Police).

Haj-Yahia, who studies the effects of the two intifadas in the last 15 years, among other things, on the mental health of Palestinian children, is convinced that the boy's encounter with the Border Policemen will scar him for life. "

Palestinian children repeatedly refer to the feelings of humiliation," he says, "their own humiliation and especially the humiliation of their parents in front of them, which is an even more difficult experience for them, which only intensifies their sense of helplessness."
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