Israel – Hamas war: Palestinian siblings see parents killed in IDF raid
Among the crowds of homeless people now packed into southern Gaza, there is a five-year-old boy called Mu’min who was hit by a grenade.
A fragment from the device passed through his left eye and is lodged in his brain – but the injury he sustained in the kitchen of his home forms just a part of this story.
The incident is just one of an innumerable number of catastrophes experienced by children in Gaza.
Follow latest updates: ‘Dreaded scenario unravelling at alarming speed’, UN warns
More than 10,000 have died according to the territory’s ministry of health. At least 17,000 children have been left unaccompanied or separated from their families according to data released by UNICEF.
Many thousands more have been injured or maimed – and every child is coming to terms with a terrible new reality.
On 15 December, Mu’min, who is disabled, and his siblings Ahmad and Buthaina, lost their parents after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) stormed into their house in a suburb north of the centre of Khan Younis.
“They raided our house and they shot our mum and dad. Then they started shooting at us and wounded our brother,” said 11-year-old Ahmad, softly.
“We went to another room, hiding from the soldiers. Then, they started banging on the door and they blew it up,” added nine-year-old Buthaina.
The pair say they were subjected to a lengthy interrogation by IDF soldiers.
“They were interrogating us, asking us to show them the tunnels and to tell them where the resistance fighters were. Then, they gave us a white flag and told us to walk down Salahudin Street,” said Ahmad.
Father tried to avert disaster
Their father, Mohammed Khattab, who was also Mu’min’s primary caregiver, had tried to avert this disaster in the days preceding this disaster.
He asked his brother, Dr Omar Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq, to alert the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in an increasingly desperate series of messages sent via WhatsApp.
On 7 December, the medic sent this on behalf of his brother: “He said that the tanks behind the house and excavator destroyed the near house.
“It’s very difficult to move without permission.”
On 8 December Dr Khattab pleaded with the same ICRC official: “I called my brother and he said there are tanks around the house – can’t move at all.
“It’s complicated.”
Mu’min has cerebral palsy and the family knew moving him would be difficult. Mr Khattab wanted to notify the Israelis in advance.
The ICRC’s representative tried to reassure them on the same day: “We’ve ensured that the houses would not be bombed or destroyed at night and in the future.”
But their confidence was misplaced.
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IDF storm family’s house
On 15 December, IDF soldiers stormed the Khattab family’s home. The children’s aunt, Duaa Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq, said she was in the kitchen when they entered.
“They knocked down the front wall and entered the house, we were sitting down and having lunch at the time. Then my brother Mohammed was shot. He was at the front, waving a white flag.”
A grenade was thrown into the crowded kitchen, injuring Mr Khattab’s wife Hind and blinding Mumin in the left eye. Family members say a soldier then shot and killed Ms Khattab.
The survivors were interrogated “for three hours” before being allowed to leave.
The children and their aunt, Duaa Khattab Omar Al Zaqzouq
‘They were firing at us from all directions’
Duaa Khattab was one of a group of nine family members – including five children – who were evicted by the IDF and she said they were forced to walk through an active battlefield.
She said: “We went down Fifth Street and faced three tanks, they fired at us, they were firing at us from all directions. We were walking not knowing where we were going, it was getting dark… every time a child screamed, a bomb went off.”
Family members reached safety in the grounds of the Gaza European Hospital the following day and it was here, several weeks later that our team met Buthaina, sketching with her precious coloured pencils. Ahmad played a little football but we were told both were struggling to speak of their ordeal.
Aunt Duaa is busy now, learning to care for her disabled nephew. She said Mu’min cries all night and she doesn’t know how to make him happy.
She said: “They’ve lost their father and mother in one day, at the same time, in front of their eyes. This is a very difficult thing. No one can cope with this, no one can.”
Incident underscores dangers Gaza residents face, Red Cross says
Sky News provided a detailed description of events including dates, times and coordinates of the Khattab family’s home to officials at the IDF but they did not comment on this incident.
An ICRC statement said: “The tragic incident involving the Khattab family underscores the dangers residents across Gaza face.
“We note that the family’s decision to stay or leave their home was complicated by a young family member’s physical disability, a factor many other families must take into consideration as they make their own individual decisions of how best to protect family members.
“Amidst the widespread violence across Gaza, it remains the legal responsibility of the parties to the conflict to ensure civilians have safe routes to take when they are ordered to evacuate. If civilians are unwilling or unable to evacuate, they still remain protected in their homes under international humanitarian law, a fact that the parties must respect.
“When an ICRC staff member shared in a text message that houses would not be bombed or destroyed, that staff member was relaying information shared with the public by the Israeli Defence Forces specifying that the IDF would pause operations on 8/12/23 to enable the movement of humanitarian aid.
“In general, the ICRC, a humanitarian organization with roughly 125 personnel in Gaza, does not have the capacity to respond to individual families in need of safe passage amidst the fighting.”
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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