On 6 December 2017, in the early hours of the morning, I was with Muhammad in the surgical ward at the European Hospital. At 2:00 A.M., he stopped breathing. Even though I knew how badly he was doing, and that he wouldn’t last much longer, it was hard to accept his death. I loved him so much
This is how Saleh Abu Hadaf, 40, described the death of his nine-year-old son, Muhammad, who was wounded in an Israeli missile attack during Operation Protective Edge, in Gaza on 8 August 2014. His testimony was given to B’Tselem field-researcher Khaled al-‘Azayzeh on 10 December 2017.
Prior to injury
When the military operation began, the Abu Hadaf family – parents Saleh and Nisrin, then 35 and 37, and their five children between the ages of three and eight – left their home in al-Qararah, north of Khan Yunis, and moved to Saleh’s sister’s house in Khan Yunis. A few days later, the military bombed the family’s home in al-Qararah.
On 8 August 2014, when a ceasefire was in effect, the parents and their children returned home to pick up some items that had survived the bombing. In the afternoon, while they were at the entrance to the ruins of their home, the military fired two missiles that landed near it. The missiles were presumably targeted at three members of the larger Abu Hadaf family, who were standing at their own doorstep nearby and were not taking part in the fighting. The three, aged 8, 15 and 19, were killed. Saleh and Nisrin Abu Hadaf and four of their children were injured and taken to hospital in Khan Yunis. Muhammad, who was 6 at the time, was wounded in the abdomen and spine. While the doctors operated on him, he had to be resuscitated and suffered lack of oxygen to the brain. He was transferred to the European Hospital in Rafah, where he remained for 15 days. During that time, it was found that his legs had been paralyzed.
Muhammad flew to Turkey with his aunt for further treatment. About two weeks later, he was joined by his brother, ‘Ayash, who was then 5 and had been partially paralyzed in the bombing, and his father, Saleh. Several months later, the family returned to their home in al-Qararah, which Saleh had partly rebuilt it with steel rods, asbestos and stiff fabric.
In early December 2014, Muhammad was hospitalized again, in Gaza.
Nisrin Abu Hadaf described the treatments her son underwent and her own feelings in those days, in a testimony she gave to B’Tselem field-researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 10 December 2017:
When Muhammad was being treated in Turkey, I can’t describe how terrible I felt. I was wounded and so were my sons. On top of that, Muhammad was far away and I didn’t know exactly how he was doing. I only got updates on the phone. My sons needed me, but I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Muhammad was given physiotherapy in Turkey, as well as medicine and injections. When he came back to Gaza, he was admitted to the European Hospital again. He was partially paralyzed and couldn’t walk. He had to use a wheelchair. Most of the time he just lay on his back, hooked up to a respirator through the throat. After that, he was transferred to the Red Crescent hospital in Khan Yunis for physiotherapy, but it didn’t help. He stayed paralyzed. When he was there, they gave him an abdominal feeding tube instead of the nasal one he’d been fed through ever since the injury, but after they put it in he started vomiting and got worse.
In 2015, Muhammad was transferred to Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem, where he underwent surgery in his stomach and throat. He stayed there for about 40 days before returning home to al-Qararah. While at home, Muhammad lost his eyesight and the ability to speak and move. An added worry was now the financial burden of routine care, which cost up to 800 ILS a week (approx.. 230 USD), on top of other expenses such as a wheelchair, an abdominal feeding device and a private nurse to care for him when he was readmitted to hospital.
In his testimony, Saleh recalled that period:
Saleh Abu Hadaf
I took Muhammad to several hospitals in Gaza and to several doctors. He was lifeless, not moving, just breathing. He couldn’t see or speak. He was admitted to the Red Crescent hospital, and I paid 1,000 ILS [approx. 290 USD] for a private nurse to care for him. I bought him a wheelchair for 2,000 ILS . I managed to get an adjustable bed, an air mattress, a suction device and inhalation equipment for free with the help of the a-Salameh charity in Khan Yunis, but over the years we’ve spent huge amounts on transferring him between hospitals and on his medication.
I worked on and off and spent everything I earned on Muhammad. My father, my sister and my brothers gave me money, but they’re all clerks and they don’t have a lot to give. Sometimes I got help from my wife’s family and from friends, too. The situation hurt everyone in the family because we had to be very frugal.
All those years we lived in a wrecked house, without real walls, windows or doors. It was very hot in the summer. In the winter, water came in through the ceiling because the asbestos had holes.
In October 2017, the family managed to move to a new home in al-Qararah, which they built with the help of Nisrin’s family and a grant from UNRWA. Muhammad underwent more tests on 2 November 2017 and was hospitalized at the European Hospital near Rafah due to abdominal edema. He had two unsuccessful surgeries. On 6 December 2017, Muhammad passed away at the hospital.
His mother said:
Muhammad’s condition remained serious the whole time, until we lost him on Wednesday at two in the morning. My husband was with him. I was nine months pregnant and couldn’t be there. When Muhammad passed away, my husband was afraid to tell me. He was worried about how I would react. I found out that morning, at seven o’clock, from my mother, brother and sister. When I heard, I couldn’t control myself. I cried and screamed for my son. Those were hard moments. I lost my son Muhammad. It was decided by Allah. Then I praised Allah and prayed for God to have mercy on him and forgive him.
Bombing and shelling densely populated areas was one of the most horrifying aspects of Israel’s conduct in what Israel called Operation Protective Edge. This policy led to the killing of at least 1,055 Palestinians – almost half of those killed in the operation – of which 405 were children and 229 were women. Despite the outcome, Israel insisted that the policy was lawful. This claim which is entirely unfounded, as it is based on an unreasonable interpretation of what can be considered a “legitimate target”, a complete subversion of the principle of proportionality, and instrumental application of the requirement for precautions. It overtly disregards of the deadly outcomes of this policy, including the killing of entire families. Israel persisted in this policy for weeks, home after home, family after family. According to estimates by UN agencies operating in the Gaza Strip, some 18,000 houses were destroyed or badly damaged and more than 100,000 Palestinians left homeless as a result of this indiscriminate firing. According to figures released by OCHA, 29,000 of these people were still homeless three years later , at the end of August 2017.
In addition, more than 11,200 Palestinians were wounded during Operation Protective Edge, including more than 3,400 children and 3,500 women. Most of the wounded persons had to make do with the deficient medical services available in Gaza and to pay for many of the treatments themselves, without compensation from Israel for the damage it caused.
Muhammad Abu Hadaf is a victim of this policy. He was six years old when the military fired a missile at a house neighboring his own ruined home. For three years, his family and doctors fought for his life, as he was transferred from one hospital to the next – in Gaza, Turkey and Israel – paralyzed, blind and unable to speak. On 6 December 2017, Muhammad Abu Hadaf died of his wounds at the European Hospital in Rafah. He was nine years old.
Over the course of five days of bombings and uncertainty in the Gaza Strip (“a round of fighting”), Israel killed 30 Palestinians. One-third of those killed did not participate in the fighting. All 10 were killed at the exact same moment, on the first night of the fighting, 9 May 2023, at around 2:00 A.M., when Israel, entirely on its own initiative, launched an air strike on three homes where Islamic Jihad operatives lived with their families: In the attack on the home of Tareq ‘Iz a-Din (48), he and his two children, ‘Ali (8) and Mayar (10), were killed. Neighbors living in the apartment above him were also killed: Dr. Jamal Khaswan (52), his wife Mirvat (44) and their son Yusef (19). In the attack on the home of Khalil al-Bahtini (44), he, his wife Layla (43), and their daughter Hajar (4) were killed. Two neighbors, who were sisters, were also killed, Daniyah ‘Addas (19) and Iman ‘Addas (17). In the attack on the home of Jihad Ghanam (62), he and his wife Wafa (61), were killed. Air strikes on homes are not an exception or an aberration, but part of Israel’s longstanding policy in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians have already been killed, thousands more have been injured, tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless. Entire families have lost their whole world in the blink of an eye, unable to protect their children or themselves inside their own homes. The difference is that in the past, when civilians were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, state officials made attempts to say the harm was unexpected: the unfortunate result of some sort of mishap or of bad, partial or obsolete intel, and other such claims. This time around, the masks were off and such claims were not even raised. Instead, Israel maintains the action was legal despite the foreseen results, since the innocents killed were simply “collateral damage,” and in any event, the blame lies with the Islamic Jihad operatives for hiding behind civilians. These justifications, and the legal opinions Israel provided to itself, clearing the strike, rely on an erroneous interpretation of international humanitarian law and a morally distorted worldview, both of which must be rejected. The claim that the action was proportionate and that the dead were just “collateral damage” nullifies the harm to civilians and drains all meaning out of one of the fundamental principles of international law. Furthermore, the question of whether the act was proportionate does not even come up in this case as the attack was aimed at residential buildings that are not legitimate military targets, making the entire strike illegal even before the extensive killing it caused. The claim that the blame for these deaths lies with the Islamic Jihad operatives automatically justifies any action Israel wishes to carry out in the Gaza Strip, no matter how horrifying the consequences, absolving it of the duty to keep harm to civilians and their property to a minimum. Israel is the one that chose to fire the missiles that caused death and destruction , and therefore, Israel alone bears full responsibility for the consequences. Israeli decision-makers chose the timing, the targets and the means for this attack. They consciously chose to fire missiles at homes in the middle of the night, while families were asleep in their beds, knowing it was expected that many - including small children - would be killed. As with any crime, there are people who are criminally liable, including the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff, the Commander of the Air Force and the Military Advocate General. To read the full document
Over the course of five days of bombings, terror and uncertainty in the Gaza Strip (“a round of fighting”), Israel killed 30 Palestinians. One-third of those killed did not participate in the fighting. All 10 were killed at the exact same moment, on the first night of the fighting, 9 May 2023, at around 2:00 A.M., when Israel, entirely on its own initiative, launched an air strike on three homes where Islamic Jihad operatives lived with their families: In the attack on the home of Tareq ‘Iz a-Din (48), he and his two children, ‘Ali (8) and Mayar (10), were killed. Neighbors living in the apartment above him were also killed: Dr. Jamal Khaswan (52), his wife Mirvat (44) and their son Yusef (19). In the attack on the home of Khalil al-Bahtini (44), he, his wife Layla (43), and their daughter Hajar (4) were killed. Two neighbors, who were sisters, were also killed, Daniyah ‘Addas (19) and Iman ‘Addas (17). In the attack on the home of Jihad Ghanam (62), he and his wife Wafa (61), were killed. The three apartments were completely destroyed, along with two others. Two more apartments were damaged. This was no mistake. Reporters who attended the military’s secret press briefings after the assault said they were told the officials who ordered the strike knew other people were in the homes and that there was a high chance they would also be killed. For example, it was reported that “the IDF knew uninvolved individuals were present in the vicinity of the three Islamic Jihad commanders and that they were likely to be harmed, but these assessments were taken into account when making the decision to carry out the targeted killings.” Given that the strikes were to be launched in the middle of the night against homes where the families of Islamic Jihad operatives live, this was the logical assumption. In the past, when civilians were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, state officials tried to pass it off as an unexpected outcome – the unfortunate result of some sort of mishap or of bad, partial or obsolete intel, and other such claims. This time around, the masks were off and such claims were not even raised. Instead, Israel maintains the action was legal despite the foreseen results. Israel’s vain attempts to justify the killings Israeli justification No. 1: It is merely legal “collateral damage” One of the claims Israel made was that the strike was legal under international humanitarian law, as it was “proportionate”. The ten innocent people killed were, therefore, simply “collateral damage.” The IDF Spokesperson, for example, said: “We carried out a very targeted operation here with a very clear message and a quality level of extremely localized collateral damage.” Amos Yadlin, the former head of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate, explained that “the IDF and the ISA showed, through the targeted killing itself, an impressive capacity for precision strikes, in multiple sites simultaneously, with minimum collateral damage (harming uninvolved individuals is unfortunate but proportionate), based on extremely accurate intelligence.” But this assertion is baseless. According to the principle of proportionality, a strike would be illegal if the “collateral damage” it is expected to inflict on civilians and their property is excessive in relation to the “direct and concrete” military advantage the attacking party can expect to gain from it. The application of this principle is elusive and vague, since there are no set definitions for what might be considered “excessive” harm or what “military advantage” is, nor is it clear how a balance can be struck between such disparate criteria. Given this, when setting out to examine proportionality in a specific case, dispassionate legal analysis is almost impossible, and it is inevitable that a person’s worldview will inform a given interpretation. Still, as with any other legal principle, not every interpretation can be considered legitimate and there are certainly cases in which the question of whether or not a strike was “proportionate” has an obvious answer. An interpretation entirely divorced from the purpose and spirit of international humanitarian law – such as an interpretation according to which a strike the military launched in the dead of night on family homes is proportionate – is unfounded. If this interpretation is seen as valid, it is difficult to see what point or value is left in international humanitarian law, as it nullifies those protections granted to civilians. Furthermore, the question of proportionality is relevant only when the strike itself is legal, meaning aimed at a legitimate military objective. Otherwise, the strike would be illegal, regardless of whether or not civilians and their property were harmed. A “legitimate military objective” is defined as one that makes an “effective contribution to military action”, that its total or partial destruction of a legitimate target is one that offers the attacking side a “definite military advantage.” The attack that night targeted the apartments of three Islamic Jihad operatives. Their homes, and two others belonging to neighbors, were completely destroyed. Can the homes of operatives be considered legitimate military targets according to the above definition? The answer is clearly no, and Israel never tried to claim otherwise. No official said the apartments were the site of any sort of activity that made an “effective contribution to military action” or that striking them offered Israel a “definite military advantage.” Damaging the homes was not the objective of the strike, but an incidental outcome of it, making the entire strike illegal, before even taking into account before the extensive killing it caused. Israeli justification No. 2: Islamic Jihad operatives are to blame, as they hide behind civilians Another justification Israeli officials have offered is that Islamic Jihad operatives are responsible, as they choose to hide behind civilians. Thus, for example, IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevy said: “If we could, we would have operated without hurting uninvolved people at all, but we must remember – terrorists act from inside the civilian population and put Gazan residents in danger.” This claim is puzzling given that the operatives were asleep in their homes with their families, not engaging in military activity “from inside the civilian population.” But more importantly, it leads to illegal outcomes. Armed organizations in Gaza do violate international humanitarian law and make no distinction between military and civilian targets. This conflation subverts the most fundamental principle of humanitarian law, namely, reducing harm to civilians as much as possible and keeping them out of combat zones. According to Israel, this conduct gives it carte blanche to do as it wishes, releasing it from the obligation to obey the law and justifying the extensive harm it inflicts on the civilian population. This interpretation automatically justifies any action Israel wishes to carry out in the Gaza Strip, no matter how horrifying the consequences, absolving it of the duty to keep harm to civilians and their property to a minimum and draining all meaning out of the principle that one party’s failure to follow the rules does not release the other from its obligation to do so. Israel is the one that chose to fire the missiles that caused death and destruction, and therefore, Israel alone bears the full responsibility for harming Palestinian civilians and their property. Any interpretation that puts the responsibility for this action and its consequences on the Palestinians must be flatly rejected. Until next time: During the rounds of fighting that have taken place in the Gaza Strip in recent years, Israel has attacked densely populated residential areas from the air, ground and sea. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, thousands more have been injured, tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless. Entire families have lost their whole world in the blink of an eye, unable to protect their children or themselves inside their own homes. Though patently illegal, this policy is fully backed by Israel’s political, legal and military leadership. Thus, the air strike on homes in the Gaza Strip on the night of 9 May 2023 is not an exception or an aberration. As in many other cases, it was not undertaken as an act of self-defense, in the face of clear and immediate danger that could not be averted by any other means. On the contrary: Israeli decision-makers chose the timing, the targets and the means. They consciously chose to fire missiles at homes in the middle of the night, while families were asleep in their beds, knowing it was expected that many - including small children - would be killed. The legal opinions Israel provided to itself, clearing the strike, rely on an erroneous interpretation of international humanitarian law and a morally distorted worldview, both of which must be rejected. As with any crime, there are people who are criminally liable, including the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff, the Commander of the Air Force and the Military Advocate General. Not long ago Israeli officials were trying to claim the moral high ground by distancing themselves from illegal acts that blatantly violate International law. Such acts were described as having a “black flag” of flagrant “illegality that pains the eye and outrages the heart" flying over them. But nowadays Israeli decision-makers no longer even bother trying to hide the fact that for them, killing innocent people, including small children, is considered legitimate, not for lack of choice, not in the face of insurmountable, immediate life-threatening danger, but as the high road, as the culmination of a reflective decision-making process, by choice, by will.
