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palestine red crescent society
Israeli Snipers Firing at 'Anyone Who Is Moving' in Khan Younis
The southern Gaza city is the latest region where Israeli forces have issued an evacuation order, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Jul 25, 2024
At least 129 people have been killed in the last five days of Israeli shelling and artillery fire in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where the Israel Defense Forces earlier this week gave people "a couple of minutes only" to evacuate earlier this week, according to Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary, before the bombardment began.
Al Jazeera reported on Thursday that "the vast majority of dead and injured are women and children," as Israeli snipers have also been deployed in the city and are firing at Palestinians indiscriminately.
The snipers "are shooting anyone who is moving," wrote Tareq Abu Azzoum in a dispatch, reporting that the eastern part of Khan Younis is the main target of Israel's current assault.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) noted that the latest evacuation order reduced the area that Israel has claimed is a "humanitarian zone," as the order covered about 15% of al-Mawasi, where people from cities including Rafah and Gaza City have fled in recent months as the IDF has launched assaults in those cities.
The group told Al Jazeera that "there is no more space, even for a single tent, in the so-called 'humanitarian area' of al-Mawasi because of the overwhelming number of people displaced there."
Israel's reported indiscriminate assault on the city has included medical workers, said PRCS, which posted a video on social media Thursday of an ambulance that had been hit by live bullets fired by the IDF while medics were transporting an injured person.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor noted on Monday that the true death toll in Khan Younis—as with the rest of Gaza—may not be known for months, "with many victims remaining trapped under the rubble and in the streets, where rescue workers have not been able to retrieve their bodies."
The group also said the IDF had perpetrated "a kind of deception of the residents" of Khan Younis and villages in the area, including Bali Suhaila, where soldiers entered "amid very violent bombardment, even though the Israeli army had said in its orders that the displacement was going to be temporary."
The forced evacuation, false information about the order, and shrinking of the humanitarian zone were "all part of Israel's media disinformation campaign and psychological warfare tactics, since military assaults on forcibly displaced people and their tents have occurred continually in this area for several weeks now, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries," the Euro-Med Monitor.
The reports of indiscriminate shooting by snipers also bolster an account given by Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who volunteered at European Hospital in Khan Younis in April, to CBS News earlier this week.
"I had sniper bullets," said Perlmutter. "I have children that were shot twice... I have two children that I have photographs of, that were shot so perfectly in the chest... and directly on the side of the head on the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the world's best sniper. And they're dead-center shots."
Perlmutter is among nearly four dozen doctors and nurses who wrote to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and First Lady Jill Biden on Thursday, describing what they saw while volunteering at hospitals across Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave and blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, including medications and medical supplies, nearly 10 months ago.
"Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict," wrote the medical workers. "However, every single signatory to this letter treated children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest."
"We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget," they added. "We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen."
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Hind Rajab Killing: Analysis Finds Israeli Tank Fired 335 Bullets Into Car at Close Range
"It's not plausible that the shooter could not have seen that the car was occupied by civilians, including children," an investigation of the five-year-old Palestinian girl's death found.
Jun 22, 2024
An Israeli tank or tanks likely fired the bullets that killed five-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab and six relatives as they sat in a car in northern Gaza in January, according to an analysis released Friday that adds to evidence of the Israeli military's role in an indiscriminate killing which galvanized anti-war protests around the world earlier this year.
A tank had to have been positioned between 13 and 23 meters from the family car when it fired the shots that killed Layan Hamada, Hind Rajab's 15-year-old cousin, and it's "not plausible that the shooter could not have seen that the car was occupied by civilians, including children," wrote the authors of the analysis, which was completed by U.K. research agency Forensic Architecture, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, with Earshot, an NGO, and Al Jazeera journalists.
The investigators found 335 bullet holes on the body of the Kia Picanto the family was using.
An Israeli tank also likely killed the two Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics who came to the scene, the analysis found. The new analysis refutes Israel's contention that its forces were not responsible for the killings, which caused an international outcry.
More amazing investigative journalism by my colleagues @ForensicArchi on the murder of #HindRajab by Israeli forces: "it is not plausible that the shooter could not have seen that the car was occupied by civilians". No UK media outlet has picked it up yet https://t.co/GLSpgVdKps
— Des Freedman (@lazebnic) June 22, 2024
On January 29, seven extended family members including the young Rajab tried to flee Gaza City by car. Rajab remained alive for at least three hours after the other six had been killed, and was on the phone with the PRCS, pleading for help. "I'm so scared, please come," she said, according toThe Guardian.
Hamada, the 15 year old, had herself been on the phone with the PRCS when she was killed. A released audio recording of her final moments, in which she explains that a tank is next to the car and shooting at them, went viral.
⏺️Audio recording of the moment gunfire was directed at 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh while she was speaking on the phone with the Palestine Red Crescent team.
💔Layan was killed, and 6-year-old Hind remained trapped inside the car surrounded by the occupation tanks and soldiers.… pic.twitter.com/iMHGdoRcni
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 30, 2024
The bodies of the seven family members and two paramedics, whose vehicle was attacked nearby, were found 12 days later, on February 10.
The new analysis broadly fits with findings of an in-depth investigation of the family's killing conducted by The Washington Post in April, adding new details and strengthening the case that Israeli forces were culpable. Following the new release, Medhi Hasan, editor-in-chief of Zeteo News, argued that those who continue to support the killing of Palestinian children are sociopaths.
Columbia student protesters honored Rajab by naming an occupied academic building "Hind's Hall" in late April. Rajab was generally reported as having been six years old at the time of her death, but The Guardian issued a correction in May stating that she had been just five years old.
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Missing 6-Year-Old Gaza Girl Hind Rajab Found Dead With Massacred Family, Rescue Workers
Rajab drew worldwide attention following the publication of her desperate plea for help as she sat surrounded by relatives slain by Israeli troops. Two paramedics sent to rescue the child were also killed by Israeli forces.
Feb 10, 2024
The decomposing body of a missing young Palestinian girl was found Saturday in Gaza surrounded by her dead relatives in a bullet-ridden, tank-crushed car near a blasted ambulance and the bodies of two paramedics killed by Israeli troops while trying to save the child.
The plight of 6-year-old Hind Rajab drew worldwide attention after the Palestine Red Crescent Society published a recording of a desperate phone call made by her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamadeh to the PRCS as her family came under Israeli tank attack while trying to flee to safety in their car in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of southern Gaza City at dusk on January 29.
"They are shooting at us. The tank is right next to me. We're in the car, the tank is right next to us," Hamadeh said before screaming as gunfire erupts and the call goes silent.
Along with Hamadeh, Rajab's aunt, uncle, and two other cousins were killed. But Rajab—who was wounded in the back and hand—initially survived.
"Come take me. Will you come and take me?" she begged PRCS dispatcher Rana al-Faqeh over the phone, telling her that she was afraid of the dark. "I'm so scared, please come!"
An ambulance was dispatched to rescue Rajab. But it, too, came under Israeli attack, and crew members Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun were killed.
In a statement, the PRCS alleged that Israeli forces "deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the site to rescue Hind."
PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh toldThe Guardian that Israeli officials gave the ambulance a "green light" to enter the area.
"First [the paramedics] said the Israeli forces are putting laser lights on them," Farsakh said. "And then we heard a gunfire sound before we lost the connection. It was like a gunfire or explosion, we were not sure of what happened."
"We have very clear Red Cross emblems on top of all of our ambulances," she added. "This is horrible because when we have waited so many hours, leaving Hind appealing to us, crying, saying please come pick me up, and then, unfortunately, although we have waited all of these hours to guarantee our safe access, it wasn't a safe access."
Referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden, Wissam Najab, Hind's mother, told Al Jazeera that "God will punish Netanyahu and Biden and all those who conspire against us and deprived me of my daughter."
The Israel Defense Forces said it was "looking into" the incident.
Human rights defenders accused Israel of yet another war crime in its genocidal onslaught against Gaza. Since launching its retaliatory war after the October 7 Hamas-led attacks, Israeli forces have killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding over 67,600 others and leaving over 8,000 people missing and feared buried beneath rubble.
At least 12,150 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets, according to Gaza officials. Witnesses say some of these children were executed in cold-blooded massacres.
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