Gaza counts the cost of war: 'Whole families smashed under the rubble'
Palestinian families suffered multiple casualties over four weeks of Israeli bombardment in Gaza, according to data collated by the Guardian. The youngest casualty was 10-day old Hala Abu Madi, who died on 2 August; the oldest was Abdel al-Masri, aged 97, who was killed on 3 August.
The figures are based on data from three independent Palestinian human rights organisations – the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan, both based in Gaza, and the West Bank-based Al-Haq; the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem; and the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
However, it is almost certainly an incomplete picture. Systematic identification of bodies and logging of data have been hampered by the sheer scale of the casualties in Gaza – about 2,000 killed in total, and 10,000 wounded – types of injuries, and the need for swift burial.
Among families in which four or more people died, 479 people were killed in total, including 212 children under the age of 18, and 15 people aged 60 and over. The deadliest day was 30 July, when 95 members of eight families were killed. On 20 July, 65 members of 10 families died, and on 21 July, 69 members of eight families were killed.
16 July, Gaza City: Al-Bakr family, four dead
It was one of the most shocking moments of the Gaza war: four boys killed while playing on a beach. As well as the deaths of Ismail, 10, Ehad, 9, Zakaria, 10 and Mohamed, 11, several other children were injured. The event was witnessed by international journalists at a nearby hotel.
Mohamed Bakr, Ismail’s father, said his son had quit school to earn money serving tea to fishermen at the port. But a combination of war and Ramadan meant there were no fishermen, and no tea to serve. Instead the child – one of 10 siblings – went to play on the beach with some cousins.
“I was sleeping when some nephews ran to tell us the TV news said four children had been killed on the beach. I was counting my children, and shouting ‘where is Ismail?’” Mohamed rushed to al-Shifa hospital and found Ismail in the morgue. “Part of his brain was outside his head and his back was burnt. But there were only small marks on his face. It was chaos in the morgue and I thought only my son was dead. But then I saw my brothers screaming.”
Some of Ismail’s siblings had reached the morgue before their father. “They saw him. All the children are afraid to go outside now.”
Twelve-year-old Sayed, the brother of one of the dead boys, also called Mohamed, was on the beach. Despite injuries, he ran home, screaming that his brother had been killed. “I didn’t believe him,” said the boys’ mother, Salwa. “Why were they targeted? Did they have weapons? They were playing.”
Sayed is now deeply traumatised, but has had no psychological help. “I don’t want Jewish mothers to feel the pain I feel,” said Salwa. “I don’t know what they are thinking.”
19 July, Beit Hanoun: Abu Jarad family, eight dead
The Abu Jarads had just finished
iftar, the meal that breaks the daily Ramadan fast, when two shells ripped into the building that was home to the large extended family.
One shell hit the flat of Alian Abu Jarad, 62, then a second blasted into his nephew’s home. In the black chaos that ensued, Alian rushed out of his house and scrambled up the stairs to find a scene of horror. Three adults, three infants and two teenage girls had been torn to pieces.
Alian pulled the limp, bloody corpse of five-month old Moussa from the rubble and staggered down the stairs with the dead baby in his arms. “All the neighbours came to help,” he later said, standing amid rubble. A pair of child-sized jogging pants, a pillow, shredded curtains and scraps of paper poked out from lumps of masonry and jagged shrapnel in the first-floor room. “There was no warning,” said Alian; no leaflets were dropped telling the families to evacuate the neighbourhood, no phone calls or text messages were received.
“Suddenly – boom,” he said. “There are no fighters here. No one is connected to any political faction. We have a brick factory – we are only concerned with our business. We are civilians. I never thought we’d face this. But now we have to deal with it. What else is there to do?”
His brother, Issa, added: “Palestinian people are not terrorists and criminals. We just want freedom and dignity.”
After the shelling, the homeless family scattered to five different UN shelters. Alian did not know if they would rebuild the property, which overlooks the family orchards of citrus and olive trees. “For now, we don’t want to come back,” he said.
26 July, Khan Younis: Al-Najjar family, 38 dead (in total)
Before this war, the Najjar family was one of the biggest in Khan Younis, with several branches spread across homes in the area. But in four separate strikes, their number has been reduced by 38. At one attack, on 26 July, seven members of the family, including two children aged three and two, were killed in a huge blast in the middle of the night. “I was sleeping when the explosion came,” said Salah al-Najjar. Clambering over broken glass and fallen masonry to reach his brother’s house next door, Salah heard his nephew calling for help. “I couldn’t see him because of the dust and the dark.”
Other relatives rushed to help. “It took us two hours working with our hands to get three survivors out,” he said. “The fourth was very deep down. He had to wait until the bulldozer came.”
Salah said there was no warning. “If there had been, we would have left. Our neighbourhood is very quiet. We are farmers. Nothing happens here – usually.” Asked why he thought the house had been targeted, he said: “This is the question we need an answer to. Please tell us.”
23 July, Khan Younis: Abu Jame family, 26 dead
Bassem Abu Jame had just sat down to eat with his pregnant wife, Yasmin, and their three young children – Batol, four, Suhaila, three, and 18-month-old Besan – when the extended family’s six-flat home was pulverised in an air strike.
“I had one mouthful, and the explosion came before the second,” he said, standing on crutches amid the ruins. “I hit a wall and lost consciousness. I woke up the next day with no idea what had happened to my wife and children.”
They were dead, along with two dozen others including his mother – 26 people in total. Three people survived the blast: Bassem, whose leg was broken in three places, his brother Hussein, and a three-year-old nephew.
He said there was no warning, and he had no idea why the house was targeted. One of the dead was reported to be a Hamas-employed policeman, but Bassem insisted that he and his brothers were vegetable-sellers. “We are not affiliated with any faction,” he said.
As well as his immediate family, Bassem said he had lost everything he owned, including photographs of his loved ones. “All my documents, my identity papers, money, pictures – it’s all gone,” he said gesturing towards a huge crater left by the blast.
“We will never recover from this. It’s like a wound – it might heal, but the scar will be there for ever.”
Countless other families like these have lost their beloved family members we can not even imagine what they have gone through !
you do not have to a muslim to stand up for gaza you just have to be a human!
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