17 Palestinian children were among the 48 Palestinians massacred by airstrikes in the 3-day Israeli aerial assault on the blockaded Gaza Strip. The offensive which targeted civilians while they were in their homes or in front of their homes was a clear and flagrant crime coming on the heels of US President Biden’s visit during which a declaration was signed confirming Israel’s unconditional right to self-defense in any time and by all means. Horrific photographs and videos filled the social media platforms showing children being pulled from under the ruins of their homes or the streets where they were playing. Other children’s bodies were splayed across the ground. Yet despite the horror world leaders and the international community were unmoved by the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.
Read Qaddoum 7 related to us how his sister Alaa 4 was murdered and how he survived the Israeli airstrike which targeted them while they were walking in the street in front of their house. Raed who was laying on his back when the PIC visited him immobilized from the injuries he sustained to his legs. “He barely talks and barely eats he is still in shock and whenever we asked him what happened he just stays silent” Raed’s mother told us. “I saw them from the window while they were running competing to see who is the fastest.”
“They posed no threat at all. There are no military positions in our area” she continued pointing out that the children were targeted before resistance fighters retaliated to the Israeli strikes. She is still wondering why they struck her children.
Raed fears now how he is going to return to school walking on his injured legs. He told us that he loves his school very much.
In another act of terrorism four children were massacred in Al Fallujah cemetery while they were playing.
On Sunday 7th of August 2022 the final day of the assault 16-year-old Hames joined his cousins Jamil and Muhammad in front of their house as there was no electricity and it was so hot. Jameel 6 also joined them. After an hour of playing they decided to visit the grave of their grandfather near their house which is only a few meters from the cemetery according to their uncle Ghassan Najm.
“We were following them from the balcony” Ghassan continued. “Suddenly we heard the explosion and all the children were dismembered and covered in blood.”
“I and my brothers the fathers of the slain children rushed to try to rescue them” Ghassan adds. The cause of this strike is unknown as there is no evidence that the children posed any sort of threat; but locals believe targeting children is another way the Israeli regime attacks Palestinian will to survive and resist.
Throughout Gaza further airstrikes caused widespread death and destruction. In Rafah an attack resulted in the massacre of eight people from the same family injuring more than forty others half of them children. And at the family home of Yasser Al-Nabaheen which was destroyed by another strike Al-Nabaheen was killed along with his three children. Surviving family members sustained injuries in the attack.
In Gaza Strip children constitute fifty percent of the total population. Each aerial assault waged by Israel is an assault upon children topping the list of targets each time. During the previous offensive on Gaza in May 2021 which lasted for 11 days 72 children were killed as a result of the Israeli warplanes brutal assault on family homes. The death was so extensive that some families were entirely erased from the civil registry such as the families of Abu Hatab Abu Auf Ashkuntanna and Alqoulaq.
Israel’s recurrent aggressions on the Gaza Strip replicate these scenarios repeatedly killing children and families without intervention rendering meaningful lives into abstract statistics barely reported in global media as the international community turns a blind eye to the ongoing Israeli siege and genocide.
