The war turns Gaza into a ‘graveyard’ for children

Barefoot and weeping, Khaled Joudeh, 9, hurried toward the dozens of bodies wrapped in white burial shrouds, blankets and rugs outside the overcrowded morgue.

“Where’s my mom?” he cried. “I want to see my mom.”

“Where is Khalil?” he continued, barely audible between sobs as he asked for his 12-year-old brother. A morgue worker opened a white shroud, so Khaled could kiss his brother one final time.

Then, he bid farewell to his 8-month-old sister. Another shroud was pulled back, revealing the blood-caked face of a baby. Khaled broke into fresh sobs as he identified her to the hospital staff. Her name was Misk, Arabic for musk.

“Mama was so happy when she had you,” he whispered, gently touching her forehead, tears streaming down his face onto hers.

Through his tears, Khaled bid farewell to his mother, father, older brother and sister, their bodies lined up around him. Only Khaled and his younger brother, Tamer, 7, survived what relatives and local journalists said was an airstrike Oct 22 that toppled two buildings sheltering their extended family.

A total of 68 members of the Joudeh family were killed that day as they slept in their beds in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, three of Khaled’s relatives recounted.

Several branches and generations of the Joudehs, a Palestinian family, had been huddling together before the strike, relatives said, including some who had fled northern Gaza, as Israel had ordered residents to do. The Israeli military said it could not address questions about a strike on the family.

In the end, members of the family were buried together, side by side in a long grave, relatives said.

Gaza, the United Nations warns, has become “a graveyard for thousands of children.”

Health officials in Gaza say that 5,000 Palestinian children have been killed since the Israeli assault began, and possibly hundreds more. Many international officials and experts familiar with the way death tolls are compiled in the territory say the overall numbers are generally reliable.

If the figures are even close to accurate, far more children have been killed in Gaza in the past six weeks than the 2,985 children killed in the world’s major conflict zones combined — across two dozen countries — during all of last year, according to UN tallies of verified deaths in armed conflict.

The Israeli military says that, unlike the “murderous assault against women, children, elderly and the disabled” by Hamas on Oct 7, Israeli forces take “all feasible precautions” to “mitigate harm” to civilians.

But the furious pace of the strikes — more than 15,000 to date, according to the Israeli military, including in southern Gaza as well — makes the Israeli bombing campaign on the Palestinian territory one of the most intense of the 21st century. And it is happening in a dense urban enclave under siege with high concentrations of civilians.

After initially questioning the death toll reported by health officials in Gaza, the Biden administration now says that “far too many” Palestinians have been killed, conceding that the true figures for civilian casualties may be “even higher than are being cited.”

In the emergency room of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah said that many children had been brought in alone and in shock, with burns, shrapnel wounds or severe injuries from being crushed by rubble. In many cases, he said, no one knew who they were.

“They are given a designation — ‘Unknown Trauma Child’ — until someone recognises them,” he said. “The crippling thing is that some of them are the sole survivors of their family, so no one ever comes.

“More and more, it seems like a war against children,” Abu-Sittah said.

The Israeli military says it “regrets any harm caused to civilians (especially children),” adding that it is examining “all its operations” to ensure that it follows its own rules and adheres to international law.

But a growing number of human rights groups and officials contend that Israel has already broken that law.

After condemning the “heinous, brutal and shocking” attacks by Hamas as war crimes, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said this month, “The collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.

“The massive bombardments by Israel have killed, maimed and injured in particular women and children,” he added. “All of this has an unbearable toll.”

Many children are showing clear signs of trauma, including night terrors, said Nida Zaeem, a mental health field officer with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza.

“They are waking up shouting, screaming,” Zaeem said from a Red Cross shelter in Rafah. Each night, she added, children in the shelter yell, “We’re going to die, we’re going to die.

“They are shouting, pleading, ‘Please protect me, please, please hide me. I don’t want to die,’” she added.

Gaza, a coastal strip on the Mediterranean, once had a lively beach culture. Yasser Abou Ishaq, 34, recalled how he used to teach his three young daughters how to swim.

“They were always asking me to go to the beach, to the amusement park, to the parks,” he said. “I loved watching them play.”

Amal, his oldest, 7, was named after his mother. At school, she was a good student with excellent penmanship, he recalled. At home, she became the teacher who made her younger sister Israa, a 4-year-old who loved chocolate and Kinder toys, play along as the student.

When his home was destroyed by what he said was an airstrike, he lost them both, he said. His wife was killed as well, he said.

In all, 25 members of his family, 15 of them children, have been killed, he said. The Israeli military said it could not address questions about a strike on the family.

Abou Ishaq said that he and his 1-year-old daughter, Habiba, had been wounded and taken to the hospital. Most of his family, including his wife and Amal, were pulled from the rubble the same day and buried by relatives, he said, while he was still being treated. He never got the chance to say goodbye, he said.

The next day, Israa’s body was pulled from the rubble, he said. He was able to see her in the hospital’s morgue and hold her one last time.

“I hugged and kissed her. I said goodbye and I cried,” he said. “God only knows how much I cried.”