Barefoot and crying, Khaled Joudeh, 9, rushed toward the dozens of bodies wrapped in white shrouds, blankets and carpets outside the crowded morgue.
“Where is my mother?” he shouted. “I want to see my mother.”
“Where is Khalil?” he continued, barely audible between sobs as he asked for his 12-year-old brother. A morgue worker opened a white shroud so Khaled could kiss his brother one last time.
Then he said goodbye to his 8-month-old sister. Another shroud was removed, revealing a baby’s bloodied face. Khaled burst into sobs again as he identified her to hospital staff. His name was Misk.
“Mom was so happy when she had you,” he whispered, touching her forehead as the tears fell from his face onto hers.
Khaled said goodbye to his mother, father, older brother and sister, whose bodies lay around him. Only Khaled and his younger brother Tamer, 7, survived the Oct. 22 airstrike that destroyed two buildings housing their extended family, according to family members and local journalists.
Sixty-eight members of the Joudeh family lost their lives that day while sleeping in Deir al Balah in central Gaza, three of Khaled’s relatives said.
Some Palestinian family members had fled the northern Gaza Strip, as Israel had ordered residents to do. The Israeli military said it could not answer questions about an attack on the family.
In the end, the family members were buried side by side in a long grave, relatives said, showing pictures of the funeral.
Gaza, the UN warns, has become “a graveyard for thousands of children.”
Determining the exact number of children killed in Gaza – in the midst of a heavy bombing campaign – is a Sisyphean task. Health officials in Gaza say 5,000 Palestinian children have died since the Israeli assault began, and possibly hundreds more.
If the numbers are even remotely accurate, many more children have lost their lives in Gaza since October 7th than the 2,985 children killed in all of last year in the world’s major conflict zones combined – two dozen countries included of the war in Ukraine, UN data show.
The Israeli military says that in contrast to Hamas’ “murderous attack on women, children, the elderly and the disabled” on October 7, Israel is taking “all possible precautionary measures” to “limit the damage to the civilian population.”
The military said Hamas intentionally caused “the greatest possible damage and brutality against the civilian population.” During the attack on Israel, people were shot in their homes, witnesses and officials say, and children were taken hostage.
In response, the Israeli military is waging a war “to violently destroy Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities.” It notes that Israeli forces have told residents to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip and are issuing warnings about airstrikes “if possible.”
But the dizzying pace of the attacks – more than 15,000 so far, including in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli military – makes the bombing campaign one of the most intense of the 21st century. And it is taking place in a dense urban enclave with high concentrations of civilians, particularly children, sparking growing concern around the world, even among some of Israel’s closest allies. The Biden administration recently said that “too many” Palestinians had died and acknowledged that the actual number of civilian casualties “may be even higher than those mentioned.”
So many children are being brought to the morgue at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah that the morgue’s director, Yasser Abu Amar, says he has to cut their shrouds into fragments to cope with the influx.
“The children’s bodies come to us broken and dismembered,” he said. “It’s scary.
“We have never murdered so many children,” he added. “We cry every day. “Every day we cry as we work to prepare the children.”
Given the scale of the bombardment, which many Gazans describe as indiscriminate and without warning, some parents have split up their children and sent them to live with relatives in different parts of the Gaza Strip to increase their chances of survival. Others have names scrawled on their children’s skin in case they are lost, orphaned or killed and need to be identified.
At Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Ghassan Abu-Sittah said many children were admitted alone and in a state of shock, with burns, shrapnel wounds or serious injuries from being crushed by debris. In many cases no one knew who they were.
“They are given the designation ‘Unknown Trauma Child’ until someone recognizes them,” he said. “The terrible thing is that some of them are the only survivors of their families, so no one ever comes.
“It increasingly looks like a war against children,” Abu-Sittah added. A few weeks ago, Al-Shifa recorded the “1,500th. unknown child with trauma,” Abu-Sittah said.
The Israeli military says it “regrets any harm caused to civilians (especially children),” adding that it reviews “all its operations” to ensure it follows its own rules and complies with international law. But a growing number of officials and human rights groups claim that Israel has violated this law.
After condemning Hamas’s “outrageous, brutal and shocking” attacks as war crimes, Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said this month: “Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinian civilians “also amounts to a war crime.” and illegal evacuation of civilians.”
Some international officials warn that children everywhere are at risk. “There is no safe place for the one million children in Gaza,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF director.
On October 15, Mohammad Abu Moussa said he was on a 24-hour shift at Al-Nasr Hospital in Khan Younis – south of the evacuation line drawn by Israel – when he heard a loud explosion nearby. He called his wife at home, but when she answered all he heard was screaming. Shortly afterward, he said, his wife, 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son were rushed to the emergency room covered in blood, hysterical and covered in dust from the debris. She tried to comfort them but panicked when she realized her youngest son, Yousef, 7, was not with them.
“Where is Yousef?” he remembered asking.
Nobody answered him.
Terrified, Abu Moussa went to the hospital morgue. Yousef’s lifeless body lay on a stretcher.
Several relatives said the airstrikes hit their home without warning and Abu Moussa’s family was rescued from the rubble. The Israeli military said it could not answer questions about an attack on the family.
Yousef wasn’t the only one killed. Abu Moussa’s brother, Jasir Abu Moussa, lost his two children and his wife, relatives said.
Another Palestinian, Yasser Abou Ishaq, 34, recalled teaching his three young daughters to swim.
When his house was destroyed by an airstrike, he lost two of his daughters, Amal (7) and Israa (4). His wife also died. In total, 25 members of his family, including 15 children, were killed, he said. Local journalists covered the attack and shared images of bodies in shrouds – members of the Abou Ishaq family, they said – as their relatives mourned them. The Israeli military said it could not answer questions about an attack on the family.
Abou Ishaq said he and his one-year-old daughter Habiba were injured and taken to hospital. Most of his family, including his wife and Amal, were rescued from the rubble the same day and buried by relatives, he said, while he received treatment. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.
The next day, Israa’s body was recovered from the rubble. In the hospital morgue, he was able to hug her one last time. “I hugged her and kissed her,” he said. “I said goodbye and cried. Only God knows how much I cried.”
“We have never seen so many children murdered. We cry every day. “Every day we cry as we work to prepare the children.”
By: RAJA ABDULRAHIM
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6997939, IMPORT DATE: 11/23/2023 7:40:08 p.m