Israel has acknowledged that it was responsible for the killing of five Gazan children during the recent onslaught against the besieged enclave, after initial reports blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s misfired rockets for the killing of the minors.
Faraan: The regime launched a wave of airstrikes on Gaza on August 5 which lasted for three days before an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect. The death toll from the air attacks has climbed to 49, including 17 children and over a dozen members of Islamic Jihad. Hundreds of others were also injured.
Five children were killed on the last day of the recent hostilities, after an air attack in the Al-Faluja Cemetery east of Jabalya. Immediately after their deaths, citing off-the-record assessments, several Israeli officials claimed that the five were most likely killed by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. However, according to a Tuesday report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the military confirmed that the Gaza children were killed by an Israeli airstrike.
The five victims were Jamil al-Din Nijm, 3; Jamil Ihab Nijm, 13; Mohammad Nijm, 16; Hamed Nijm, 16; and Nathmi Karsh, 15. Palestinian resistance groups describe an al-Quds bus shooting as a “natural response to the occupying Israeli regime’s daily crimes against Palestinians.” In response to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up.
A day after the ceasefire, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus. According to Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Israeli attacks on Palestinians were systematic and deliberate and fall under Israel’s strategy of using disproportionate and excessive force against civilians. Five wars have been unleashed between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza since 2008. The regime has been using US-made warplanes and weapons to hit targets in the densely-populated area. Human rights organizations say that based on the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, it is more than clear that Israel has been committing war crimes during its attacks on Gaza.