As Amnesty accuses Israel of deliberately targeting Gaza civilians, father recounts how Israeli airstrikes destroyed home, killed his two daughters 'without mercy'

The Israeli army illegally destroyed scores of Palestinian homes in the besieged Gaza Strip during its ferocious attack on the territory in May, according to Amnesty International. 

In its reports issued earlier on Tuesday, the international organization criticized the “Israeli violations,” against the civilians in Gaza, accusing Israel of adopting collective punishment against the residents there.

In early May, the Israeli army launched a five-day offensive against the Palestinian territory ostensibly targeting the Islamic Jihad movement (PIJ) in Gaza, killing at least 33 Palestinians, including six leaders of the PIJ, and wounding more than 200 others mostly civilians.  

Amnesty International said the Israeli army launched disproportionate air strikes on the small but densely populated coastal enclave, killing and injuring many Palestinian civilians, including children.

Amnesty International said this followed a pattern the organization has documented in previous Israeli operations, calling it a likely war crime.

“It has been a month since the ceasefire agreement between the Israeli authorities and Palestinian armed groups, but the suffering these repeated Israeli attacks inflict on civilians in the Gaza Strip never stops,” said Heba Morayef, the director of Amnesty International in Middle East and North Africa.

“In our investigation,” she added, "we heard touching testimonies about bombs that destroyed homes, about parents who had to pull their daughters out from under the rubble, and about a teenager who was fatally wounded while she was lying cuddling her teddy bear".

Alaa Adass, a Gaza-based man, lost two of his daughters during the first day of the Israeli assault when the Israeli airstrikes hit a two-storey building in the Shaaf neighbourhood of Gaza City with a GBU-39, a small-diameter bomb manufactured by Boeing Defense and Space.

The raid targeted the apartment of Khalil al-Bahtini, a prominent member of the al-Quds Brigades. Khalil al-Bahtini, his wife Laila al-Bahtini, and their four-year-old daughter, Hajar, were killed. The adjacent apartment was also hit, killing Dania Adass, 19, and her sister, Iman, 17.

Speaking to The New Arab, Adass said that “At that time, I heard a heavy explosion near me. Then I felt that my house was destroyed (...) I ran toward the bedroom of my daughters to save them, but I found Dania dead; Iman was severely wounded but she could not move.” 

With the help of his neighbours, Adass took his surviving daughter to the hospital but the doctors announced her death a few hours later.

With a breaking voice, the grieving father said “Neither my daughters nor I were involved in any military actions in Gaza. We were civilians who were looking forward to living in peace.” 

“Dania was happy as she was supposed to celebrate her wedding in July, while Iman dreamed of being a doctor someday,” the father said, “but all my daughters’ dreams ended since Israel decided to kill them without mercy.” 

The situation is not much better for Mohammed Sarsour, a Palestinian man from Dir al-Balah city in the centre of the Gaza Strip. He lost his house to Israeli airstrikes that attacked his neighbour’s house under the pretext of involvement in the PIJ. 

“My neighbour heavily knocked on my door and asked me to evacuate my family as soon as possible because the Israeli army wanted to attack our other neighbour’s house,” the man recalled.  

“Initially,”  Sarsour said, “My neighbours and I thought the airstrikes will target the house of Abu Obaid family only. But later, we found that the army completely destroyed about 25 residential units and severely damaged dozens of our neighbours’ houses.” 

“Without committing any fault, the Israeli army decided to destroy our houses and displace us for an unknown period,” said the 42-year-old father of four. 

Amnesty International confirmed that the illegal attacks on Palestinian homes and the illegal blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007 are an integral part of the Israeli apartheid regime against the Palestinians, which amounts to the crime against humanity of apartheid, based on both the International Convention for the Suppression of the Crime of Separation Apartheid and the Rome Statute.

‘The Israeli apartheid system must be dismantled, the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip must be lifted immediately, and those responsible for the crime of apartheid, war crimes, and other crimes must be held accountable under international law,” said Heba Morayef.