Parents who joined country at war - are they to blame?

[aretok]

I was having a conversation with someone about the current news and we had conflicting views. I was wondering what was your take on it.

Two people, originally from Palestine, but born and bred in an European country, decide to leave their European country to move to Palestine and do humanitarian work there. They bring their three young children with them. When the whole attacks this month were escalating, they still had the possibility to fly back but decided to stay, quoting the mum "My life isn't more important that other Palestinians life".

Two of their children are killed by airstrikes.

Are the parents to blame? Would you feel less bad for the parents?

I would feel desperately sorry for them.

I feel sorry for those 2 children losing their lives

Absolutely they are. Still tragic though

I too would feel very sad for them, but I admire their integrity .

There are many stories around where a child died because a parent knowingly / carelessly put them in danger even on a smaller scale like not holding a toddler's hand so they run out into the road. It might be their choices that endangered the child but they are likely blaming themselves and don't need outsiders making them feel worse.

I think its easy to judge from the outside

Id' feel sorry for anyone having to live with consequences of their actions like those.

personally I think they are yes. if anything happened here my first thought and responsibility would be to do anything / be anywhere that would be most safe for my children. if I was single amd risking my own life then thats one thing, but not when others lives are my responsibility

why the feck would you blame the parents or anyone other than the awful powersthatbe who are bombing them and engaging in war? Like the Israel government or (other side, Hamas).
What a weird conversation to have Op, if you did indeed have it. Looking to blame parents whose children have been killed in a war. Heartless.

We were talking about two French children, their parents ran a charity in Gaza and the mum ran a social media account where she documented the atrocities of war she was witnessing.
The Instagram account became very popular amongst the French community since the beginning of the month. She then wrote a post saying she refused to leave Gaza and would die there if necessary, a few hours before the bombing of her house. Hence the whole debates that occurred around their tragic story.

I feel very sorry for them, but having worked in areas prone to outbreaks of political or other violence or other humanitarian disasters I'm a bit surprised they were able to take their children there with them; Gaza and Ramallah are both non family duty stations for the UN and many NGOs follow the same guidelines for their staff members. In any case, even if one parent is determined to stay behind and assist in their professional capacity it would be usual for the other parent to leg it out of there with the kids as soon as possible. Most of the time you would not even have a choice to stay as your organisation or the host state will want you gone as they don't want to be paying the insurance payouts in case it all goes wrong.

How awful for them.

How desperately sad.
Blame the warmongers.

It is one thing to put your own life in danger.

It is quite another to risk the lives of your young children.

In 1940 my teenage grandmother was sent by her father, on her own, out of Belgium on one of the last ships to leave Antwerp before the Germans arrived. Into the unknown, no family to go to, just a contact of my great-grandfather in Northern Rhodesia. He stayed in Belgium as far as I know (no idea what happened for him but he survived) but he damned well made sure his child went to relative safety. As would anyone with any thought for their children.

It's why we evacuated in the blitz. Children should not be put at unnecessary risk. Those who didn't allow their children to evacuate (looking at you Nan!) were not thought very highly of. Fortunately she got away with it.

No parent should have to experience the death of a child.
I certainly would not judge them or feel differently than those who loose children to cancer or motor vehicle accidents.

who mainly left Ukraine? Woman and children... I know a number of Ukrainian women wh'o were completely clear they would have stayed to fight if they'd not had children to protect. I know a number of Ukrainian grandmothers who are here with grandchildren while their son / daughter fights in Ukraine because they wanted their children out of harm's way.

However little you value your own life you should not risk the life of your child if you have a clear route to protect them. You do not risk your child's life because of a principal.

That said, I feel hugely sorry for the parents in this case. They made a decision they will never stop regretting - It's easy for me to sit here and say what I've said above because it's an obvious text book answer but hopefully I'll never need to make that choice because under that pressure while I believe I'd do what needed to be done (viz sending my children away) I can not be certain what I'd do.

@EdgeOfACoin I agree. I don’t understand how anyone would deliberately choose to put their children in such danger. I don’t think it’s comparable to those who lose children to an illness or a car accident. Surely the level of risk is so much higher.

What sort of a question is that....playing the blame game with those children's parents.. They'll blame themselves without anyone else laying on the guilt.

Agree 100%

I don't think anyone should be blaming parents whose children have been killed. You don't know the full story. I know people from Ukraine who have had to make the choice of whether to leave with younger children when they have an 18 year old son who is not allowed to leave (as they may be signed up to the army). Or who have elderly relatives who can't or won't leave.

Bloody hell as far as really crass threads go, this one is definitely up there with the worst of them.

Just why would you start a thread like this on a completely public forum OP?

Just be thankful it's not you or your family's tragic bereavement being gossiped about.

This. Imagine losing your children, and strangers on the Internet debate it with a view to seeing whether you should be blamed

Doing humanitarian work in a sorry place like Gaza is quite noble, but you must do everything to keep your kids out of harms way.
Also, Israels reponse is somewhat dispropotionate, with hundreds of bombs dropped daily.

Children should not knowingly be taken into a war zone.
Why couldn't they leave them at home safely with family?