Laurie Copoans recently wrote an article about how West Bank poverty spawns child beggars. I include an excerpt:
Israel’s massive barrier of walls and fences separating it from the West Bank has made it harder for adult laborers to enter Israel, so families wracked by poverty are increasingly sending their children instead.
Children as young as 3 stand at traffic lights for hours, in rain or baking sun. They beg for change or sell cigarette lighters and batteries. At night, they sleep in fields, cemeteries, mosques, drainage canals or on streets. Their earnings are often taken by thieves or shady middlemen, and some are sexually abused or forced to sell drugs.
Unfortunately, children in the West Bank not only suffer from poverty, but they have to fear warfare. Quite commonly, Palestinian Children and families fall victim to bombs and missiles.
Both Israeli and Palestinian militaries often aim for civilian targets, and then tally the rest to collateral damage.
We need to end the war and the poverty, not just in the Middle East, but in the whole world.