Thousand of shoes were placed on Groningen’s Grote Markt on Sunday by Plant een Olijfboom, an organisation working for peace in Palestine, to pay tribute to the 16,000 children who have been killed by Israel as it continues to wage its war against Gaza.
This is the eighth time the organisation has organised such a memorial in the Netherlands. Between noon and 17:00, several people took turns reading out the names of the deceased children. On their website, organisers said more than a hundred people are involved as volunteers in this commemoration protest. Through this memorial, Plant een Olijfboom wants to commemorate the children and call for a permanent end to the violence in Gaza.
While most of the shoes were placed in pairs, there were also single shoes placed in Groningen’s main square to highlight that many children have lost limbs in the ongoing violence. The charity Save the Children said that more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October 7, with many amputations performed without anaesthesia.
Over the weekend, The Guardian reported that Israeli forces targeted several areas across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 39 Palestinians, according to health officials, as tanks advanced deeper into western and northern Rafah. Among those killed on Saturday were local journalist Mohammad Abu Jasser, his wife and two children in an Israeli strike on their home in the northern Gaza Strip, a medic said.
Photos: The Northern Times
