Ramallah, September 28, 2022—17 Palestinian children are confirmed killed after the Israeli military launched a three-day military offensive on the Gaza Strip last month.
Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian children in four separate airstrikes between August 5–7, according to information collected by DCIP. Five Palestinian children were killed by misfired rockets from a Palestinian armed group, and DCIP field researchers continue to investigate two other incidents where four Palestinian children were killed.
On August 5, Layan Mosleh Hamdi Al-Shaer, 10, was injured by Israeli shelling around 4:30 p.m. near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Layan, who suffered a critical head injury, was transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, alongside three other injured Palestinian children and two injured adults. Layan was later transferred to the European Hospital in Khan Younis then to Al-Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem on August 9. No one in Layan’s family was permitted to accompany her to Jerusalem and she succumbed to her wounds on August 11.
On August 5, Alaa Abdullah Riyad Qaddoum, 5, was killed around 4:30 p.m. in an Israeli airstrike in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The Israeli airstrike hit a group of people gathered outside Abu Samra mosque in the Wadi Al-Arayes area of Shuja’iyya neighborhood. Alaa’s six-year-old brother, Riyad, and father, Abdullah, were injured in the same attack.
On August 6, Mohammad Iyad Hassouna, 13, was killed in an Israeli airstrike around 9:30 p.m. in Rafah refugee camp, west of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Mohammad sustained severe lacerations all over his body, specifically the right side of his chest. A U.S.-sourced Israeli warplane apparently targeted a three-story residential building without warning, according to information collected by DCIP. The Israeli warplane fired at least six rockets, destroying eight homes with families still inside, killing seven people, and injuring another 35 people, including 18 children.
On August 7, an Israeli drone-fired missile struck Al-Fallujah cemetery, west of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, around 7 p.m., according to documentation collected by DCIP. The Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian children: Jameel Najmuddin Jameel Najim, 3; Hamed Heidar Hamed Najim, 16; Jameel Ihab Jameel Najim, 13; Mohammad Salah Hamed Najim, 16; and Nathmi Fayez Abdulhadi Abu Karsh, 15.
On August 6, four Palestinian children were killed around 9 p.m. by a misfired rocket from a Palestinian armed group on Trance street in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The explosion killed five-year-old Momen Mohammad Ahmad Al-Nayrab, 11-year-old Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad Al-Nayrab, 9-year-old Hazem Mohammad Ali Salem, and 16-year-old Ahmad Waleed Ahmad Al-Farram, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The explosion killed a total of seven people and injured 43, including 26 children.
On August 8, 10-year-old Haneen Waleed Mohammad Abu Qaida succumbed to her wounds sustained on August 6 when an rocket misfired by a Palestinian armed group struck a nearby vehicle as she stood near the doorway to her home located in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The rocket struck the family’s vehicle while Haneen and her family were preparing for a relative’s wedding. The explosion killed her 60-year-old grandmother, Naama, and injured five other children.
Haneen was first transferred to the Indonesian Hospital and then to the intensive care unit at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to information collected by DCIP. She suffered a laceration in her right leg, multiple fractures in her knee and leg, and internal injuries from shrapnel in her abdomen and liver. Doctors operated on Haneen’s injuries at Al-Shifa and were planning to transfer her to an Israeli hospital for a surgery to reconnect her arteries when she succumbed to her wounds around 1:30 p.m. on August 8.
DCIP is still investigating the source of two explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another four Palestinian children. Both explosions coincided with Israeli drones flying over the areas as well as the launches of rockets from Palestinian armed groups.
An explosion occurred around 7:05 p.m. on Al-Nazaza street in the eastern part of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on August 7, killing 15-year-old Fatima Ayed Abdulfattah Obaid, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Fatima’s sister, 13-year-old Rahma, was critically injured in the explosion and transferred to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Fatima’s father, Ayed, also sustained an injury to his leg. Two other explosions struck nearby around the same time, according to information collected by DCIP.
Another explosion on August 7 struck the Nabaheen family home in Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip around 7:05 p.m., according to documentation collected by DCIP. Three Palestinian children were killed in the explosion: 14-year-old Dalia, 12-year-old Mohammad, and nine-year-old Ahmed Yasser Nemer Nabaheen. The children’s father, Yasser, was also killed in the explosion, and a fourth sibling, Bilal, sustained moderate injuries.
39 Palestinian children have been killed in 2022, according to documentation collected by DCIP, including 22 Palestinian children shot and killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on August 5, killing at least 44 people and injuring at least 350, according to Al Jazeera. A ceasefire went into effect at 11:30 p.m. on August 7. The Israeli military offensive came just days after Israeli forces arrested a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank city of Jenin and killed 16-year-old Dirar Riyad Lufti Al-Haj Saleh, also in Jenin, who was protesting the Israeli military’s incursion into Jenin refugee camp.
International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and requires all parties to an armed conflict to distinguish between military targets, civilians, and civilian objects. Israel as the occupying power in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the Gaza Strip, is required to protect the Palestinian civilian population from violence.
Israeli authorities have imposed a closure policy against the Gaza Strip since 2007 by strictly controlling and limiting the entry and exit of individuals; maintaining harsh restrictions on imports including food, construction materials, fuel, and other essential items; as well as prohibiting exports. Israel continues to maintain complete control over the Gaza Strip’s borders, airspace, and territorial waters.
