Gaza – Ma’an – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that its statistics show that the Israeli army killed 2,100 Palestinian infants under the age of two, out of about 17,000 children killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the genocide committed by Israel since October 7.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the number of Palestinian children, both infants and children in general, killed by the Israeli army is horrifying and unprecedented in the modern history of wars, and reflects a dangerous pattern of dehumanization of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by deliberately, systematically and on a large scale targeting them and their children without stopping for ten months, in the most brutal and horrific ways.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor confirmed that many children had their heads and limbs cut off as a result of the Israeli bombardment that was extremely destructive on civilian gatherings, especially homes, buildings, residential neighborhoo
ds, shelters, and tents for forcibly displaced persons, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the rules of distinction, proportionality, military necessity, and taking the necessary precautions.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that its field team documented today, Tuesday, the killing of the two infants, “Aser” and “Aysal Muhammad Abu al-Qumsan”, who are twins who were not more than four days old. They were killed this morning, Tuesday, August 13, 2024, along with their mother “Juman” and their grandmother, in an Israeli bombing that targeted a residential apartment in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
He pointed out that the father of the two children had gone out to obtain a birth certificate for his two newborn children, and returned to the apartment to find it destroyed and all of his family members, in addition to the grandmother, killed in a direct Israeli targeting of the house.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor highlighted that the Israeli army possesses ad
vanced technology, and knows that every time it targets a home or shelter, there are civilians inside, including children and women. However, it bombs them with missiles and bombs with great destructive power, deliberately causing the greatest possible loss of civilian lives and severe injuries, as evidenced by the repeated, systematic and widespread pattern of Israeli targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the highly destructive and indiscriminate weapons, especially against areas with dense civilian populations.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stressed that the case of the two infants, Aser and Aysal, is a recurring case, as children, including infants, are being killed every day.
The most prominent testimony was given by Abdul Hafez Al-Najjar (42 years old), the father of the child Ahmed, who was beheaded and killed with three of his brothers, their mother and a large number of victims in an Israeli massacre that targeted displaced people in tents in the ‘Barakasat’ area west of Rafah
in the southern Gaza Strip on May 26. He told the Euro-Mediterranean team: ‘My child Ahmed looked very beautiful. He was a year and a half old. His head was cut off in the Israeli bombing. His head was separated from his body. When I saw him, I felt oppressed. He was buried without his head.’
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that two other infants, Wissam and Naim Abu Anza, aged six months, were also killed along with their father and 11 family members in an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Salam neighbourhood in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, on March 3.
Rania Abu Anza, the mother of the two children, said that she gave birth to the two babies after ten years of trying to have multiple inseminations and implants inside the uterus, to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, saying: ‘They implanted three embryos in me, two of them remained, and now they are gone. Ten days after they were killed, they would have been six months old. They bombed the house, my husband, my children and the family wer
e killed in the massacre.’
Euro-Mediterranean also highlighted the case of Ms. Shaimaa Al-Ghoul, who was nine months pregnant when her house in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was bombed on February 12, killing her husband and her two sons, Mohammed and Janan, and she was injured by shrapnel in her abdomen that reached the fetus.
Al-Ghoul reported that her husband, Abdullah Abu Jazzar, had prepared for her ‘dates, sweets, and a Christmas bag in celebration of the expected birth of his child before he was killed along with his two children.’ She said that she gave birth to a child whom she named Abdullah, after his father, but he only lived one day, as he died from the shrapnel wound, leaving her and her husband without a child.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor confirmed that dozens of unborn babies were killed in hospitals as a result of the lack of oxygen and electricity, the absence of care, and the targeting of hospitals over the past ten months.
He said that Israel continues to kil
l thousands of Palestinian men and women in the Gaza Strip, most of them in their reproductive years, including pregnant women, and thousands of children, including infants. There is no doubt that the systematic and widespread killings committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians, who constitute at least 92% of the total number of genocidal deaths, amounting to about 50,000 Palestinians, including thousands under the rubble, in addition to wounding and injuring about 88,000 others, will have negative repercussions on the population growth rates and reproductive capacity of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and for generations to come, and will leave serious consequences for the Palestinians as a national and ethnic group for several generations, according to the meaning of the acts of genocide under Article (2) of the Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.
He pointed out that deaths are recorded daily among infants as a direct result of crimes that fall within the acts of genocide committe
d by Israel in the Strip, especially starvation, thirst, preventing and obstructing the entry of basic aid, such as milk, and deprivation of health care. Most of these are not recorded in the numbers of victims announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, due to the lack of a specific mechanism for accrediting this type of victim.
He added that Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, in light of the ongoing genocide for ten months, no longer enjoy any kind of protection stipulated by international law, and have been deprived of their basic rights. They have become primary, direct and deliberate targets of the Israeli army, including deliberate killing and direct executions.
Palestinian children have also become victims of crimes of arbitrary detention, torture, inhuman treatment, enforced disappearance, sexual violence, deliberate mutilation, severe psychological injuries and suffering, starvation, siege, forced displacement, destruction of schools, deprivation of education, destruction of the health se
ctor, deprivation of health care, and other basic survival requirements. They are also victims of family dispersal and deprivation of parental care.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the effects of these crimes will not end with the end of the war, and will remain with them throughout their lives, and this is one of the most prominent goals of the Israeli crime of genocide. There are thousands of children who have lost their fathers and/or mothers, thousands of children who have had their limbs amputated and suffered severe burns and other serious injuries, and the vast majority of children have suffered psychological trauma that may be difficult to treat, while the majority of children suffer from hunger, malnutrition and dehydration, which will negatively affect their future growth and their physical, mental and educational abilities.
As a result of the widespread destruction of civilian objects in the Gaza Strip, including homes, private property, sources of livelihood, production, an
d the economic and commercial system that the Israeli army deliberately created and subjected the population to living conditions intended to destroy and impoverish them, most children in the Gaza Strip have lost their homes, their own economic security and that of their families, and have been deprived of education, which will have serious repercussions on their future and their ability to enjoy their other rights, making them more vulnerable to poverty, unemployment and exploitation, and less able to contribute to the reconstruction of Palestinian society in the Strip after the end of the Israeli military attack, thus forcing Palestinians to migrate directly and indirectly.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor renewed its call on the international community to take urgent and immediate action to stop the crime of genocide and to stop Israel from turning the Gaza Strip into the largest cemetery for children in modern history around the world, to provide them with protection and to end the blatant dou
ble standards that dominate its positions.
He stressed that Israel should be held accountable for its flagrant violations of international humanitarian law in killing and targeting Palestinian children and preventing the realization of their rights by depriving them of their needs for medical assistance – including vaccinations – food, shelter and clothing recognized in the Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Protocols.
Source: Maan News Agency