Where is the human nature?

One of my regular guard posts is Masof Rabin, or the Rabin Border Crossing between Israel and Jordan in Eilat. We have 8 hour patrols most of which are spent sitting there and at one a few weeks ago, a passed the time the way I usually do...by standing with the guards and customs control workers there. It was about 9:30 at night--a time at which the Jordanians with Israeli work permits have all already gone home and the only people passing through are American/French/Israeli/British/etc (usually) Jewish tourists who spent a few days touring in Akaba. I was standing with the guard "Lior"--a massive 25 year old with an M4 hanging by a strap around his chest--when I noticed a dark figure running towards us down the 300 meter stretch between the Jordanian and Israeli border control stations. As the figure came closer we noticed that he was waving a gun. There is a second of panic, a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach, where your eyes get wider and your hands get tense and you can't plan what to do. Whatever you do is instinct. But within that one second the figure moved under a light for just long enough for us to realize that it was nothing more that a small child, no older than 5 or 6 with a plastic gun in his hands. Trailing behind him were his father, a short dark man with a mustache and a metal cart covered in luggage, his mother, a slim, pretty woman with a shawl covering her hair, his two sisters and his brother. Lior turned to the father with a "give-me-a-break" tone in his voice. "You know better than to let him run here like that," he said. "You can clearly see he's a child" said the father in accented Hebrew. "And what if I couldn't?" pleaded Lior. "Next time put the gun in the suitcase before you pass through." Lior radioed to the customs officials inside and to the command squad that there was a small boy with a toy gun coming through so that they would not be taken by surprise and maybe accidently make a mistake. Lior and I and the man with the mustache all knew that he did it on purpose...that he let his kid run up to Israel this way. Why would you take the chance of your child being shot? So that you can blame Israel? Is it really worth it?