ANKARA
A total of 34 children, the youngest of whom was 5-month-old, have been killed in Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip since Monday.
Palestine’s Health Ministry confirmed that at least 34 children were killed and the youngest of them was a 5-month-old infant.
On May 10, 15-year-old Mohammad Saber Ibrahim Suleiman and his father were killed instantly by an Israeli drone-fired missile while they were working on their agricultural land outside the city of Jabalia. Doctors at a hospital in Jabalia, where Mohammad’s body was transferred, reported that there were shrapnel wounds all over his body.
In a subsequent incident, a rocket -- a source of which still unknown -- killed eight Palestinians, including two children. Sixteen-year-old Mustafa Mohammad Mahmoud Obaid was killed in the blast and 5-year-old Baraa Wisam Ahmad al-Gharabli succumbed to his wounds later in the day.
A third blast in Beit Hanoun on the northeast edge of the Gaza Strip that occurred the same day killed six Palestinian children as well as two adults.
Cousins, 10-year-old Rahaf Mohammad Attalla Al-Masri and 2-year-old Yazan Sultan Mohammad Al-Masri, and brothers, 6-year-old Marwan Yousef Attalla al-Masri and 11-year-old Ibrahim Yousef Attalla al-Masri, along with 11-year-old Hussein Muneer Hussein Hamad and 16-year-old Ibrahim Abdullah Mohammad Hassanain were among those killed. The al-Masri family was killed while reportedly harvesting wheat in a field outside their home with their children playing nearby.
The following day, Israeli airstrikes killed at least three more children, with warplanes carrying out hundreds of attacks on densely populated civilian areas across the Gaza Strip.
Fifteen-year-old Lina Iyad Fathi Sharir and both her parents were killed when an Israeli warplane completely destroyed a two-story residential building with two missiles fired on Gaza’s Al-Manara neighborhood.
Sharir’s 2-year-old sister Mina is currently in critical condition with third-degree burns at Shifa Hospital.
Two more Palestinian children -- 4-year-old Zaid Mohammad Odeh Telbani and 13-year-old Hala Hussein Rafat Rifi -- were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in Gaza, when an Israeli warplane targeted the Salha residential building in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood.
The same attack killed Telbani’s mother Rima Telbani, who was five months pregnant. His 2-year-old sister Miriam is missing and is presumed dead.
Seventeen-year-old Bashar Ahmad Ibrahim Samour was killed the next morning near the Gaza perimeter fence in Abasan Al-Jadida. Israeli forces, deployed on the opposite side of the fence, shot Samour, who was working as a farmer and connecting irrigation pipes at the time.
Hamza Mahmoud Yassin Ali, 12, was struck by shrapnel from a missile fired by an Israeli drone in Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood on Tuesday. He succumbed to his wounds on Wednesday morning at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Another missile fired from an Israeli attack helicopter hit Hamada Attia Abed al-Emour (13), Ammar Tayseer Mohammad al-Emour (10), and Elyan Moneer Ibrahim al-Emour (12).
Hamada and Ammar died on the spot. Elyan, who was struck with shrapnel in the abdomen, has been in critical condition at Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital since May 13.
Another airstrike killed Yahya Mazen Shehada Khalifa, 13. The airstrike hit an auto-repair shop on Gaza's main roadway of Salah al-Din, injuring dozens and damaging many houses.
A 3-year-old toddler, Muhammad et-Tanani, along with his three siblings, Ethem (4), Emir (5), and Ismail (6), were killed in Khan Younis.
An only 5-month-old infant Muhammed Zeyn el-Attar, and his siblings Islam (5) and Emire (6) were killed in attacks in the Best Lahia region.
A 2-year-old, Ibrahim ez-Zentisi, and Our ez-Zamili, whose age has not been specified, were murdered by Israeli elements.
Zacharia Allus (17) fell victim to the attacks in the Jabalia region.
Rashid Ebu Ara (16), Said Ude (16), and Zeyf Fadil Muhammed Kaysiye (17) also lost their lives in West Bank.
According to data from Palestine’s Information Ministry, over 3,000 children have so far been killed in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians over the last two decades.
Israel continues to target Gaza with heavy bombardment, which has also caused heavy damage to residential buildings across the enclave.
To date, nine Israelis have been killed in the recent violence -- eight of them in rocket attacks, in addition to a soldier killed when an anti-tank guided missile struck his jeep.
Tensions have been running high in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem over the past month as Israeli settlers swarmed in following a court order for the eviction of Palestinian families in the area.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed the entire city in 1980 -- a move that has never been recognized by the international community.
