By Ali Abunimah
This video shows Yahya Hassan embracing and bidding farewell to his baby daughter Rahaf in Gaza on Sunday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNOtwmkxc4I
“Wake up, my daughter,” the inconsolable father says, and asks relatives to “leave her with me.”
The toddler died along with her pregnant mother Nour Rasmi Hassan in an Israeli air strike.
Israel claimed it was bombing two Hamas “weapons-manufacturing centers” after one of its anti-missile batteries intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza.
The fierce explosion of the Israeli bombs caused a nearby house in Gaza City’s al-Zaytoun neighborhood to collapse killing Nour, who was 5-months pregnant, along with Rahaf, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, which cited medical sources.
Nour Hassan was aged 30. The father Yahya was also injured in the attack.
Senior Israeli military personnel generally acknowledge that Hamas is not firing the rockets and is attempting to prevent small groups from doing so, in line with the ceasefire agreement that ended Israel’s 51-day attack on Gaza in August 2014.
But Israel asserts that Hamas is responsible for everything that happens in Gaza. While Palestinian violations of the ceasefire are extremely rare, Israel has breached it hundreds of times, according to international monitors.
Gaza boys killed
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot dead two Palestinian boys near its boundary fence with the Gaza Strip, east of Khan Younis.
The Palestinian Authority health ministry named the boys as 13-year-old Marwan Barbakh and 15-year-old Khalil Othman, according to Ma’an News Agency.
The Palestine Red Crescent said that its medics had treated seven Palestinians shot with live rounds across the Gaza Strip, and 21 who suffered excessive tear gas inhalation on Saturday, Ma’an added.
On Friday, Israel killed six Palestinians in the same area of Gaza. The six had been protesting in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank.
Gaza-based journalist Mohammed Omer has suggested that the desperate situation in Gaza, which remains under tight Israeli siege with little reconstruction since last year’s attack, is fueling the protests.
“When I talk to protesters they tell me: either we live in dignity or die. Israel has to realize this shift in the new generation,” Omer tweeted.
Since the start of October, 23 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, according to figures released by the Palestinian Authority health ministry on Sunday.
The ministry put the number of injured by live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets fired by Israeli forces at more than 1,100.
A Palestinian man who had been hit in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet on Thursday, also died of his injuries on Saturday.
Ibrahim Ahmad Mustafa Aoud, 27, was injured during confrontrations with Israeli forces in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar, Ma’an News Agenvy reported. Doctors said he died due to severe head trauma.
Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books. Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.
11 October, 2015
Electronicintifada.net