FALCON POWERS – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that its statistics show that the Israeli army killed 2,100 Palestinian infant children under the age of two, among about 17,000 children it has killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the genocide being committed by Israel since last October 7th.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor stated in a statement that the number of Palestinian children, whether infants or children in general, killed by the Israeli army is horrific and unprecedented in the modern history of wars, and expresses a serious pattern based on the dehumanization of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by deliberately, systematically and extensively targeting them and their children without interruption for ten months, in the most brutal and heinous ways.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor emphasized that many children had their heads severed and their body parts torn apart by the highly destructive Israeli bombardment on civilian gatherings, especially homes, buildings, residential neighborhoods and displacement camps, in flagrant violation of the rules of distinction, proportionality, military necessity and the necessary precautions.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor stated that its field team documented on Tuesday the killing of the infant twins “Aser” and “Aysel Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan”, who were only four days old, when they were killed along with their mother “Juman” and grandmother in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential apartment in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
It pointed out that the father of the twins had gone out to obtain birth certificates for his newborn children, and returned to the apartment to find it destroyed and all his family members, in addition to the grandmother, killed in a direct Israeli targeting of the house.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor emphasized that the Israeli army has advanced technology, and it knows every time it targets a home or a civilian shelter from which civilians, including children and women, are present, and yet it bombards them with highly destructive missiles and bombs, deliberately causing the largest possible number of civilian casualties and severe injuries, as evidenced by the repeated, systematic and widespread pattern of Israeli targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the use of highly destructive and indiscriminate weapons, especially in densely populated civilian areas.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor stressed that the case of the infants “Aser” and “Aysel” is a recurring case, as daily victims are recorded among children, including infants.
The most notable testimony is that of “Abdel Hafez Al-Najjar” (42 years old), the father of the child “Ahmed” whose head was severed and killed along with three of his siblings, their mother, and a large number of victims in an Israeli massacre that targeted displaced persons in the tents in the “Al-Barakat” area west of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on May 26 last.
He told the Euro-Mediterranean team: “My child Ahmed was very beautiful, he was a year and a half old, his head was cut off in the Israeli bombardment, his head was severed from his body, when I saw him I felt outrage, he was buried without his head.”
The Euro-Mediterranean team also mentioned that two other infant children, “Wassam” and “Naim Abu Aniza”, both six months old, were also killed along with their father and 11 family members in an airstrike carried out by the Israeli air force on the “Al-Salam” neighborhood in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on March 3.
“Rania Abu Aniza”, the mother of the two children, stated that she gave birth to the infants after ten years of trying various insemination attempts and embryo implantation, to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, saying: “They implanted 3 embryos for me, two remained, and here they are gone. Ten days after their killing, they would have been six months old. They bombed the house, my husband, my children, and the family were killed in the massacre.”
The Euro-Mediterranean team also highlighted the case of Ms. “Shimaa Al-Ghoul”, who was in her ninth month of pregnancy when her house in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, was shelled on February 12 last, resulting in the death of her husband and her sons “Muhammad” and “Janan”, and she was injured by a shrapnel that reached the fetus.
“Al-Ghoul” stated that her husband “Abdullah Abu Jazar” had prepared for her “dates and sweets and a birth bag, joyful about his expected newborn before he was killed with his two children.” She mentioned that she gave birth to a child whom she named “Abdullah” in honor of his father, but he lived only one day, as he died due to his shrapnel injury, losing her three children along with her husband
The Euro-Mediterranean affirmed that dozens of unborn children were killed in hospitals as a result of oxygen and electricity outages and lack of care, as well as the targeting of hospitals over the past ten months.
It said that Israel continues to kill thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children in the Gaza Strip, most of them in their childbearing years, including pregnant women and thousands of children, including infants. There is no doubt that the systematic and large-scale killings committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians, who make up at least 92% of the total number of victims of the crime of genocide, numbering around 50,000 Palestinians, including thousands trapped under the rubble, in addition to injuring about 88,000 others, will have negative repercussions on population growth rates and reproductive capacity among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and for generations to come, and will have serious consequences for Palestinians as a national and ethnic group for several generations, in accordance with the meaning contained in the provisions of the crime of genocide under Article (2) of the Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide.
It pointed out that cases of death are recorded daily among infants as a direct result of the crimes that fall within the acts of the crime of genocide committed by Israel in the sector, especially starvation, thirst, and the prevention and obstruction of the entry of basic aid, such as milk, and deprivation of health care, and most of these are not included in the announced numbers of victims by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, due to the lack of a specific mechanism for adopting this type of victim.
It added that Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, in the face of the ongoing crime of genocide for ten months, have not enjoyed any of the protections stipulated by international law, and have been deprived of their basic rights. They have become the main, direct and deliberate targets of the Israeli army, including premeditated murder and direct executions.
Palestinian children have also become victims of arbitrary arrest, torture, inhumane treatment, enforced disappearance, sexual violence, deliberate mutilation, severe psychological trauma and suffering, starvation, siege, forced displacement, destruction of schools, deprivation of education, destruction of the health sector, and deprivation of health care, and other basic means of survival. They are also victims of the disruption of families and deprivation of parental care.
