'The Children Haunt Me at Night': The Protest That's Forcing Israelis to Face Kids Killed in Gaza

The Children Haunt me at Night

~~ recommended by dreamjoehill2 ~~

(Unfortunately the images of the children who were slaughtered would not post here.  The photos are of vibrant and healthy kids - not mutilated corpses or starving bodies.  Please click on the link above to see the galleries of beautiful children who have lost their lives to the Genocide, NB)

Rasha al-Ar'eer, a young Gazan girl, survived the bombing of her home in June last year. The experience prompted her to write a last will. On a piece of paper she kept in her pocket, she wrote in red ink: "Please do not cry for me, it hurts me to see your tears. Give my clothes to the needy, divide my things up – the boxes of beads, the pocket money, the books, the toys – among my cousins. Please don't yell at my brother, Ahmed. I hope you will respect my wishes."

On September 30, the family's house was bombed again, Rasha was killed, and so was Ahmed. She was 10. He was 11. They were buried next to each other.

Mohammed Hamada was born after his mother underwent 15 years of fertility treatments. When he was 3, he was critically wounded in an Israel Defense Forces attack. A video uploaded that day shows his father running through the devastated streets of Jabalya holding Mohammed in his arms, begging him not to die. A few days later, Mohammed died of his wounds. Another clip shows the father weeping inconsolably over his son's body before laying him to rest.

Seven-year-old Taha Behroozi was killed by an Israeli bomb in the city of Tabriz, in Iran, last month; two sisters, Iman and Talia Nasser, from south Lebanon, were also killed in an air force attack. Nastya Buryk, a 7-year-old who originally came from Ukraine, was killed by an Iranian ballistic missile in Bat Yam. She had come to Israel to be treated for leukemia – and was killed along with her mother, grandmother, brother and aunt. Aline Kapshetar, who was 8, and her brother, Eitan, 5, were shot to death on their way home to Dimona by Hamas terrorists on the morning of October 7, 2023.

Only one website in Hebrew commemorates these children together. Called Forcibly Involved, it is devoted to memorializing the child "noncombatants" from all nations who have been killed since October 7. To peruse the site is to plunge into the nightmare we are all living through, but trying to ignore. Thousands of dead boys and girls, Israelis, Lebanese, Iranians – but most of all Palestinians from the Strip.

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• Is it important to call Israel's carnage in Gaza 'genocide'?

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, Rasha, the 10-year-old, is No. 10,228 on the list of fatalities it has drawn up. Meaning that to date, 10,227 children younger than her have been killed in the war.

The founder of Forcibly Involved is Adi Ronen Argov, 59, a clinical psychologist from the center of the country who specializes in trauma therapy. In the past two years, she has become a one-person information agency. She is the most methodical Hebrew-language documenter of the death and suffering in Gaza since mid-October 2023.

Ronen Argov says she has always been aware of what's going on with respect to government policy and military actions in the territories and Gaza, but like many others, she made do with taking part in an occasional demonstration to assuage her conscience. The turning point was the "Night of the Bastille" – referring to the huge demonstration in Jerusalem on July 14, 2020, as part of the Balfour Street protests – on the street where the Prime Minister's Residence is located – against Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption.

That was also the first time anti-Netanyahu demonstrators and police had clashed violently in the streets of Jerusalem, and the police had brought in water cannons and mounted officers to deal with them. Ronen Argov was there – and her life was never the same afterward.

To peruse the website is to plunge into the nightmare we are living through but trying to ignore. Thousands of dead boys and girls, Israelis, Lebanese, Iranians – but most of all Palestinians from Gaza.

"It was a scream that was transformed into action. I was fed up with everything," she explains in one of the conversations we had in Tel Aviv and on the phone. In the weeks that followed, as the protest movement failed to have any discernible effect on the person residing on Balfour Street, a new phenomenon began to emerge among the demonstrators. A few dozen became activists against the occupation in the West Bank and against the discrimination suffered by Israel's Arab population. Ronen Argov joined the group and began taking action in the West Bank.

In February 2021, she took part in a demonstration in the city of Umm al-Fahm in the Galilee, protesting the police's lack of action in dealing with the rampant murders in the Arab community. She posted real-time footage of the police violence on Facebook. "It was the first time I used Facebook Live," she recalls.

Her clip of police officers firing tear gas and dousing the demonstrators with "skunk water" went viral. "I realized that as a privileged person, I was obligated to use my voice. In Umm al-Fahm, they told me, 'You they will believe, but us they won't.' So it occurred to me that I needed to be the one to tell the story. I saw the impact of the documentation. A week later, thousands of Jewish Israelis turned out to support Umm al-Fahm. It's true that a week after that they didn't come back, but I still think it had an effect."

In the next stage, Ronen Argov expanded her documentation activities in the West Bank. "I accompanied [Palestinian] shepherds a little, and often participated in protests in the town of Beita, on whose lands the settler outpost of Evyatar was established. I stood at the side, I inhaled tear gas, and I saw the asymmetry between an armed force and children with stones.

"There is no way the stones could even reach the soldiers on the hill," she continues, "but they fire tear gas, stun grenades and sometimes live ammunition. The cruelty rampant amid the stunning landscape there affected me. Afterwar,d I would go on to the demonstrations in [the East Jerusalem neighborhood of] Sheikh Jarrah. At one demonstration, a stun grenade damaged my hearing."

The combined power of the Umm al-Fahm clip and the experiences in the West Bank and East Jerusalem gave rise to a WhatsApp group of daily updates of events in the West Bank: Two and a half years ago the chat group evolved into a website that she administers called The Daily File (in Hebrew and English), which documents the occupation relentlessly: the casualties and fatalities, IDF raids and demolitions of houses, attacks by settlers.

On October 7, 2023, Ronen Argov was engaged in documenting the deaths of minors in the West Bank, but after the war erupted, she abandoned the project and went to the Dead Sea hotel, where survivors from Kibbutz Be'eri were being housed. There, she went back to her original occupation: treating trauma-stricken families.

"I have two friends from Be'eri from a family, some of whose members were murdered and one woman abducted. My love for them prompted me to get into my car and drive to the hotel. I was witness to the shock, to the scale of the horror, to repeated cries for help in WhatsApp groups. I would come home, put on loud music – and scream and cry," she relates. "I was in a state of paralysis, furious at the state and the army, but I didn't 'come to my senses' and I didn't get confused. It didn't make me furious at the Palestinian people."

In the weeks that followed, The Daily File resumed its activities but also began to focus on the situation in Gaza. The information is presented in a matter-of-fact way but doesn't spare the readers. The report for July 15, for example, opens with brutal statistics: 93 killed and 278 wounded in the previous 24 hours. One can see a clip of two wounded children lying on the floor of a hospital and an older man trying to coax them to explain what happened.

The report includes footage of bombings in various parts of the Strip and more information: "Bodies of three children rescued [pulled out] from rubble of the Nassar family home. The number of persons killed by the bombing several days ago has risen to 12. Residents' gathering bombed, 9 persons killed, including five children, and over 25 wounded. Al Rimal – displaced persons tents bombed, wounded people; Tel El Hawa – Al Awda Tower [residential building] No. two bombed. Drone attacks the Jarar al-Qudra School area, one person killed and several wounded. A house was bombed near Al Radwan Mosque, four people were killed. Drone attacks the square [in Bani Suheila], seven persons killed." And so on, and on. An ordinary day in the Gaza Strip.

Other images accompany the July 15 report on The Daily File – stills and video clips of small corpses, an infant whose face is covered in blood, buildings exploding and masses of people crawling on the sand, trying to evade the shooting next to a food distribution center.

"There are videos I don't post, like those of shattered body parts, but the site isn't intended to arouse pity," Ronen Argov says. "I think that we've reached a level of violence and cruelty where to make things palatable for those who refuse to know is like supporting someone's addiction. I don't want to go on maintaining a pretense. I am not trying to convince people. To enter the site is a choice, and I don't expect people to go in every day, but if they do, I will not prettify reality."

It's easier now to recruit people to hold up signs in silent demonstrations on behalf of the children; more people take an interest in what is going on. There's something about the starvation story that jolts people more.

Adi Ronen Argov

The Daily File is like a photographic negative of the Israeli media. An item on the site this week quoted Ron Yaron, editor of Channel 12 News, Israel's most popular newscast, explaining why it's not necessary to cover events in Gaza on television. "It's hard to relate to it," he stated. According to Avishai Grinzaig, who reports for i24NEWS, "The reason that television channels aren't broadcasting that [i.e., images from Gaza] is that the public doesn't want to see it."

"I think that is total arrogance. It's shameful that the media has forgotten its purpose," Ronen Argov asserts. "They are not stirring the public to ask questions about the situation, just flooding it with information. The majority of the Israeli media is not fulfilling its role."

A few weeks ago, she and a few other activists launched an initiative aimed at convincing senior women in media to speak out about the situation in the Gaza Strip. "I was given the phone number of a leading journalist. I sent her a personal sort of message. I wrote that I really admired the way she had broken the glass ceiling for women. She asked me to send figures. I sent her [information] for a while, but she didn't respond."

Double life

Over a year ago, Ronen Argov and fellow activist Shaul Tcherikover started the Forcibly Involved project to document the children being killed in Israel, the territories and a few other countries. It opened with the story of a 12-year-old boy named Zayn Uruk. In April 2024, a short clip had been posted of Uruk after he'd managed to grab an airdropped food package. He recounted the event emotionally and with a smile to some unseen cameraman-interviewer (the clip has English subtitles). "I have been trying since noon [to get a package]… I was about to die [literally, I was almost killed] when people were rushing to get the aid."

A few days later, Zayn was killed while scrounging for more food: A care package struck him as it fell. Not long afterward, Israeli stand-up comic Avi Nussbaum derided Gazans who were killed after being hit by airdropped food parcels. "It's not pleasant to laugh about it, but imagine that today someone in Gaza died from a guided missile fired from a helicopter, while someone else was killed by a can of corn that landed on his head." The audience lapped it up.

"There was something about Zayn's smile, his shy eyes, that grabbed me," Ronen Argov recalls. "I think the comedian was speaking out of ignorance."

A few days after the boy's death, last year, she and other activists started to demonstrate in Habima Square in Tel Aviv with photos of children and teenagers under the age of 18 who were killed in Gaza, captioned "Forcibly Involved."

At about that time, Palestinian journalist Tamer Almisshal called on parents in Gaza to post images of their dead children; he received hundreds of pictures and names of youngsters. Most were pictured in festive clothing, modeling for the camera. Inspired by him, Ronen Argov and her colleagues started to regularly post photos and names of the dead children.

"People think I only post [images of] Palestinians, but that's not true. There are also Israelis and Lebanese and Iranians," she says. "There were also weird responses: 'They're really sweet, they don't look Palestinian.' But that is exactly the purpose: to humanize."

Thus evolved "a project memorializing the names of children killed on and since October 7, 2023, on both sides of the border, without differences of nationality, and with the belief that every child has a name, a life that has been, and dreams cut short," as the Forcibly Involved website explains. The images of children appear with a few details and the phrase "she/he was here, but not anymore; " Misk al-Sharif, 1 year old, "killed in a displaced persons camp along with her pregnant mother"; Muhammad Aziz Fadel, "killed while trying to get food"; "Jouri al-Masri, 3 months old, was here, but not anymore. Died of malnutrition and dehydration due to a lack of an appropriate milk formula. Gaza, June 27, 2025."

We stand at the entrance to the air force base with images of children. We don't shout "Murderers" or call them names, we only want them to see the results of their actions.

Yali Merom

Last week, the New Israel Fund announced that Ronen Argov was this year's recipient of its Truth to Power award, given to an individual "who acts fearlessly and publicly against structures of power." The prize money of 100,000 shekels (about $30,000) will help her upgrade her site and make it more user-friendly, she says.

Beginning on March 23, about a week after Israel violated the cease-fire with Hamas and killed hundreds of Gazan children and women in a single night, the photos moved from the virtual to the real world – literally, to the street. Activists held up posters of the dead youngsters and stood on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv as participants in the weekly demonstration calling for the return of the hostages passed by en route from Habima Square to the Kirya, the defense establishment headquarters.

"We were between 10 and 20 women activists, and we were prepared for curses and opposition, but surprisingly, there were just a few curses – people mainly took an interest," says Alma Beck, one of the organizers of the ongoing children's protest. "People mostly didn't understand, and asked us things like, 'So many children?' We had to explain that this was nothing compared to reality. Some people were shocked, some wanted to join us.

"The following week, we printed 100 pictures, and all were taken by protesters who joined us. After that we printed 300, and again all the pictures were taken and the line [of demonstrators] grew longer. We felt that we were succeeding in breaking down a wall."

Ronen Argov agrees that a shift is gradually taking place in the attitude of the Israeli public toward the events in Gaza. "It is easier to recruit people to hold a sign up in silent demonstrations on behalf of the children; more people are taking an interest in what is going on. I think there is something about the starvation story that jolts people more."

Yali Merom and his partner, Maayan Dak, from Rehovot, have taken this protest to the air force bases. "We live in Rehovot, we hear the planes taking off, and we ask who they are going to kill this time," Merom says. "We decided to stop shouting at them from below and to bring the photographs to the bases. We stand at the entrance to the base with images of the children. We don't shout 'Murderers' and don't call them names, we only want them to see the results of their actions."

These protests usually pass quietly, though occasionally high-ranking officers from the bases have tried to shoo away the demonstrators and have called the police. "But sometimes they talk to us," Meron adds. "A squadron commander asked what would happen if one of the pilots were to decide not to bomb Gaza. We told him that the situation would be better than it is now."

Despite the cracks in the public feeling about the massacres ongoing in Gaza, Ronen Argov is pessimistic about fomenting any real change in Israeli society's attitude toward the crimes in the Strip anytime soon.

"We are in the midst of a prolonged trauma," she says, "and during a prolonged trauma, the response is to return to very simplistic attitudes of black and white. There is no possibility of containing complexity, and compassion is generally quite complicated."

She is also very pessimistic about the ability of society to cope with the atrocities being perpetrated in its name. "I think we will truly grasp it only in hindsight, only generations from now, when the grandchildren of today's soldiers ask, 'What did you do in back then?' Now it's still the 'people's army,' and everyone has some sort of connection to a soldier. So is it that the soldier I love and who is important to me is a war criminal? It's all too close; there is enormous dissonance, a huge rupture. So, in the meantime, I am creating an archive on the basis of which it will be possible in the future to analyze things. The change will not happen in my lifetime."

As an expert on the subject, Ronen Argov diagnoses herself as suffering from secondary trauma because of her exposure to the videos and the testimonies. "I have sleeping difficulties, I get angry easily, I have feelings of despair, sensitivity to noises. I dream about the children, they haunt me at night," she says, listing the symptoms.

She also describes an outpouring of hatred directed at her from surfers and commenters: "I've stopped reading and I don't respond, I've developed a sort of immunity. But from being a person who really believes in people, I have become a hater of people. I avoid celebrations; when there are events or a family gathering I find excuses not to go. I live a double life that I can't share with people who are dear to me. There's a part in me that cannot forgive those who are normalizing things."

In the first year and a half of the war, she admits that she hesitated about calling what was being done in Gaza "genocide." Those doubts disappeared, however, in the wake of the deadly bombing that killed hundreds of women and children on the night of March 18, when Israel violated the cease-fire with Hamas and renewed the war.

Ronen Argov: "Since then, I have come to terms with the concept. It's not just about the number of those killed; it's the methodical way it's being done. It can be said that there is an element of intention [to perpetrate genocide] not only because of the declarations of politicians and of commanders on the ground, but because of the actions that are occurring."

A few months ago, she came across a photograph of a dead boy whose name was written on his hand. "It turns out that parents are writing names on their children's limbs, so that it will be possible to identify them when they die. Around the same time, I came across the poem by Zeina Azzam entitled 'Gaza' in Arabic [English title: "Write My Name"], which concludes:

"Write my name on my leg, Mama

Don't add any numbers

like when I was born or the address of our home.

I don't want the world to list me as a number.

I have a name and I am not a number.

Write my name on my leg, Mama

When the bomb hits our house

When the walls crush our skulls and bones

our legs will tell our story, how

there was nowhere for us to run."

"I have in my mind an image of a group of dead children under a blanket, and you see their names written on the leg," Ronen Argov says. "That is a picture I will not forget – how could I possibly forget it?"