Blood-stained pieces of Ma’moun’s clothes were splayed
across the olive grove (Photo: Hama Waqum)
Shreds of black and blue cloth stained in red lay scattered across an olive grove on the outskirts of Gaza City.
The remains of 13-year-old Ma’moun al-Dam’s t-shirt lay hooked into an olive bush and his sandals flung five meters away from where he was killed.
Nobody is talking about what happened at 2.30pm on Wednesday afternoon, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), as usual, are not being questioned bout their actions.
An untouched picnic and bloodstained cushion.
(Photo: Hama Waqum)
Ma’moun was killed by a bomb dropped by the IDF while he was having a picnic with his parents in a garden in the area between Zeitoun and Tal Elhawwa neighbourhoods.
One of Ma’moun’s neighbors- a man in his 20s who didn’t want to be identified- recalled the events, “I heard a scream and came to the olive grove. I could see black smoke. I froze when I arrived- I couldn’t do anything for five minutes. I saw a young mother screaming over her son’s body.”
A pock marked fence thrown back by the force of the blast. (Photo: Hama Waqum)
The hole where the bomb fell was shallow, and Ma’moun was around a meter and a half away when it landed. His right arm was cooked to a crisp and his body riddled with small holes. His clothes were burnt and lay in shreds in the bushes, sprawled across the olive grove and into neighboring land. The force of the bomb sent the nearby metal fence flying two meters. The metal is riddled with tiny pea-sized holes. Ma’moun’s neighbors believe that the bomb held metal pellets, which exploded in a cluster, causing his torso to be dotted with waves of small wounds.
Pellet-sized holes damaged both Ma’moun’s body and
the surrounding area. (Photo: Hama Waqum)
Ma’moun’s school tests and notes were scattered around the picnic site, out of reach of the explosion, which melted the olive grove’s plastic fence. The neighbor recalled, “Ma’moun always likes to write, he brings papers with him everywhere.”
The olive grove has barely been touched in 24 hours. The family’s picnic lies untouched on a plastic table. Next to the dried pickles are a mattress and cushion- both now stained in blood as Ma’moun’s mother moved her son into the shade, laying him in front of his father, who is blind and was injured in the head during the attack. Shrapnel hangs in the bushes and Ma’moun’s phone split into three pieces, intertwined in the brambles.
The neighbor explained that Ma’moun’s mother “put his body down in front of her husband and said to her husband, who cannot see, “Say mashallah; you have a martyr for a son.”
Ma’moun’s death is one of 16 since escalations began on Monday. The 13-year-old’s death has gone largely unreported and the IDF have made no official statement on his death, except by responding to tweets asking for an explanation with a deflection. :
.@welshingaza@sarahcarr Why does Hamas use teenagers on picnics as human shields? #Gaza ow.ly/bKIvO
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) June 22, 2012
Neighbors have said that no missiles were launched from the area and if they had, the family would certainly have left their picnic, especially during an escalation.
No proof of a rocket launch has been offered by the IDF and nobody is asking questions about why a 13-year-old was killed.
Put pressure on the IDF to explain why they killed Ma’moun al-Dam.
Contact them here
Tweet the IDFSpokesperson
They simply don’t care. The IDF launch missiles in a random fashion, purely for punitive ‘retaliation’ and could care less where they land. It is heartbreaking and disgusting, but all you will hear is the sound of silence, followed by the usual lies and feeble deceit, excuses and justification. I suppose the hardhearted swine will tell us they wanted publicity. They are beyond reason.
Being a Palestinian is wholey suffiecient when you are dealing with racists. After all are there any people who support Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing who are not racists?
Why ask “why” Apartheid israel kills peaceful Palestinians while they’re on a family picnic? We all know the gruesome answer to this question.
In this instance, it’s more spiritualized to count the hands in the last foto , hands full of embraces and love for Ma’moun and his bereaved father, Muhammed.
These ARE the very hands that will one day destroy the occupation and rebuild their beloved Palestine.
R.I.P. sweet Ma’moun. I never met you, but I know you and your life-story like I know my own face in the mirror.
Another question to the anonymous author
regarding his illustrations photos allegedly taken at the scene.
All of them and i checked lack the metadata that usually shows when the picture was taken (the date) and under what conditions (the exposure settings of the camera)
Can the author please provide the original jpg’s so we can at leas check when they were shot (though we won’t be sure as to where)
This picture in particular is interesting
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/images/2012/06/DSCF0395.jpg
Shrapnel from air dropped ordnance (Lets assume that there is such ordnance that uses pellets arranged in clusters i am not an expert but usually i would find pellets in ied’s) usually do hit in patterns (because it is arranged in clusters)
but they don’t tend to leave such accurate straight lines on one metal surface and leave an adjacent metal surface completely intact.
Rifle fire does that, during target practice.
And last question where are the pictures of the shallow crater left by that bomb
can we see the as well please. (Again please the original with metadata intact)
Just curious.