news‘Oh starving children of Gaza’
A statue of the Madonna with a child at Ripon Cathedral in Yorkshire. Three Mother and Child sculptures in copper by the York artist Harold Gosney attract a great response from visitors, especially those with eyes wide- open to what is happening in Gaza. (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
In March 1960, 69 Africans were shot dead at Sharpeville.
For decades, the name Sharpeville and the figure 69 symbolised the horror of apartheid.
For several decades, concerned clerics, often with small children on their shoulders, marched around Trafalgar Square in London to show their anger and disgust as the political system in South Africa.
Today, its more of the same.
But in a different part of the world.
Something like 62,000 people have been killed.in Gaza since the horrendous attack by Hamas on Jewish music-lovers and party-goes in Israel.
Thousands of them are children.
Hardly a soul in the Christian churches says a word.
A report in The Guardian today (May 13, 2025) says that at least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza today.
Strikes hit the European hospital complex near Khan Younis and left large craters gouged into the ground and cracks in the courtyard outside the European Hospital complex.
A damaged bus was lodged in a hole in the road.
The silence of the Christian churches – like the horror that has un-folded in Gaza- continues.
OH RASCAL CHILDREN OF GAZA by Khaled Juma
Oh rascal children of Gaza,
You who constantly disturbed me with
your screams under my window,
You who filled every morning with rush
and chaos,
You who broke my vase and stole
the lonely flower on my balcony,
Come back –
And scream as you want,
And break all the vases,
Steal all the flowers,
Come back,
Just come back . . .