ALL MASSACRES IN HANDS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE ARE NOT EQUAL

On February 21 three Islamic State bombs killed an estimated 120 people and wounded 150 in Syria's Damascus in the Sayeda Zeinab district near a shrine of the same name. All bombs exploded near schools.

Sayeda Zeinab have had a Palestinian refugee camp since 1948, and one of the targeted schools is used by Palestinian refugee children. One bomb exploded 40 meters from the entrance.

Of the dead, 31 were Palestinian refugees, among them at least 4 children including a 6 month old baby. Of the wounded, 28 were Palestinians and 13 of them children.

The bombing overall got some amount of fleeting coverage in world media, the fate of the Palestinian refugees almost none. We did publish a post about the deaths, based on sources in mainly Palestinian media.

Exactly the same number of people as Palestinian refugees killed on February 21st were now murdered in Brussels, Belgium. The entire world's attention has been in the brutal attacks in Brussels for two days.

The same attention that never reached those 31 Palestinian refugees, exiled from home for almost seventy years and now caught up in a civil war morphed into a geopolitical proxy war between super-powers, regional powers and fundamentalist groups.

It didn't reach them during the decades of exile, not when they were left marooned between competing armed factions, not when they were killed as brutally as those killed in Brussels.

Islamic State killed the 31 Palestinian refugees a little over a month ago, but ethnic cleansing by Israel and its denial of the rights of refugees and the global refusal to enforce those rights prepared their fate, leaving them trapped in Syria. Nakba prepared the eventual stage where the Islamic State killed them.

SOURCES:

31 Palestinian refugees killed in Syria bombings: UNRWA
http://aa.com.tr/…/31-palestinian-refugees-killed-in…/527475

Bombing of Damascus killed over 30 Palestinian refugees: Un Chronicle
http://www.albawaba.com/…/bombing-damascus-killed-over-30-p…

Dozens of Palestinian refugees killed in Syria bombings
http://www.trtworld.com/…/dozens-of-palestinian-refugees-ki…

Palestinian refugees killed in Sayyida Zeinab bombing
http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx…

UNRWA CONDEMNS EXPLOSIONS TARGETING CIVILIANS IN SAYYIDA ZEINAB
https://unispal.un.org/…/unispal.nsf/0/64498A6173226FAD8525…