The Israeli army has admitted to conducting the airstrike that killed five Palestinian children in the northern Gaza Strip earlier this month, after initially blaming their deaths on a misfire from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
The airstrike occurred on August 7th, the last day of a three-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, dubbed by the Israeli military as “Operation Breaking Dawn.”
The strike targeted the al-Faluja cemetery in the town of Jabalia, and struck five children while they were visiting the grave of their grandfather. The youngest victim of the strike was just three-years-old.
Nathmi Karsh, 15, Hamed Nejm, 16, Mohammad Nejm, 16, Jamil Ihab Nejm, 13, and Jamil Najim al-Din Nejm, 3, were all killed in the strike. The Nejm boys were all cousins, and Nathmi Karsh was their close family friend and neighbor.
Immediately after the airstrike, senior military officials told Israeli media that the children were “most likely” killed by a PIJ misfire. The airstrike on the cemetery came just hours after a separate strike in the Jabalia refugee camp that killed eight Palestinians, including three children, which the army also blamed on PIJ.
Haaretz reported that in the case of the five boys killed in the cemetery, “despite their off-the-record assessments, senior IDF officers never commented publicly about who was responsible.”
Following an army inquiry, Haaretz reported on Tuesday that “several defense sources” confirmed to the newspaper that it was in fact an Israeli airstrike that killed the five boys.
During Israel’s three-day operation in Gaza, 49 Palestinians were killed including 17 children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Israel claimed the operation was “preemptive,” and was carried out to target PIJ military sites across Gaza, with the purpose of crippling the group, which has the second largest militarized presence in Gaza following Hamas. Over the course of three days the army assassinated several high-ranking PIJ officials, including Tayseer al-Jabari, the head of the group’s military wing.
‘We collected their body parts with our hands’
Thirteen-year-old Jamil Ihab Nejm’s father, Ihab, recounted to Mondoweiss the day that his son was killed.
Jamil was with his cousins and friend at their home when he left to go to the store. While he was out, Jamil and the four boys went to the nearby cemetery, where their late grandfather is buried.
“Our sons were targeted in front of our eyes.”
Ihab Nejm
“The cemetery is just 10 meters away from our home,” Ihab said, adding that Jamil and his cousins frequently visited their grandfather’s grave, as the cemetery was one of the only open spaces the boys had access to to play and spend time together outside.
“When the bomb fell, my wife screamed out loud before even knowing what had happened,” Ihab recounted. “I went immediately to the cemetery to search for my son, when I recognized a piece of his t-shirt. That’s when I knew he was there.”
Ihab told Mondoweiss that Jamil and the other boys were blown to pieces by the airstrike.
“Our sons were targeted in front of our eyes. We collected their body parts with our hands,” he said.
The boys were killed just hours before a ceasefire between Israel and PIJ went into effect in Gaza. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, three of the boys had been undergoing trauma therapy before they were killed.
Tareq Hajjaj contributed to this report from Gaza.
Israel’s vicious behavior towards Palestinians, particularly children, just seems to get worse by the week. Of course, this should be no surprise when you have: the IDF that considers the killing of children not only as collateral damage but as important to Israel’s policy of collective punishment; a far right government which includes the Minister of the Interior, Alyet Shaked, who, in her own words, calls Palestinian children ‘little snakes’ whose elimination will keep them from one day becoming terrorists, and; a growing population of young in Israel behaving more and more like the Hitler Youth of the 1930’s.
A couple of points. One, as we all know the first thing that Israel and the IDF do is to deny their responsibility for anything and to blame others. That is standard operating procedure until it is shown undeniably that they really did the act.
Secondly, what the hell were they doing bombing a cemetery in the first place. Strategic national importance, I suppose. No end to the hell they will inflict on the Palestinians.
I reposted this article today on my Facebook page but a few hours later, I got a message from FB that it had to be censored as it violated their “community standards.” I clicked a button that I didn’t agree with their decision. Do you have any idea why this article would violate FB’s policies?!