On July 17, 2014, in the middle of the war in Gaza, a short truce came to relieve the inhabitants subjected to intense fire from the Israeli army. This targets the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas as part of Operation Protective Edge, which caused the death of 1,462 civilians, including 551 children, and 11,000 wounded on the Palestinian side and 6 dead, including a child, on the Palestinian side. Israeli. Three of Wissam and Kefah Shuheibar’s children take the opportunity to go outside and play with two of their cousins on the roof of the building they live in in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City shortly before the breakup. Ramadan fast.
“It was the eighth day of the war, but everything was quiet then. We are not in a military zonesays Wissam Shuheibar, 47, a police officer on call from the Palestinian Authority. When the missile hit the roof, I was in the room below. The explosion did not make a huge noise from where I was. I opened the window to understand what was going on and saw all the neighbors looking in the direction of my terrace. » His apartment building was the only one in his neighborhood hit during the 2014 summer war.
Despite the risk of a second strike, he rushes to the roof. “There, I saw a pool of blood, the water tank was leaking everywhere and mixing with the children’s blood. The bomb hadn’t made a big hole, but the walls were riddled with thousands of small shards of metal. My daughter showed me her shredded hands and said, “Daddy, it hurts.” I took her in my arms to carry her to the ambulance which came. She died on the way.”says Wissam Shuheibar, still affected almost ten years later.
“We still have not understood the reason for this shooting”
Two other children die: Wassim, 9, and Jihad, 10, who are the sons of Wissam’s brother, Issam Shuheibar, 45. Like little Afnan, 8, they are riddled with shrapnel. The missile, fired by a drone, is as deadly as it is precise: the fragments do not exceed an area of two to three meters. It’s a precision weapon – potentially a Spike, Mini-Spike, or Lahat missile according to experts – made to kill a human target without destroying an entire building.
A son of Wissam, Oudaï, and one of his nephews, Bassel, are seriously injured. The first, hit in the brain, was transported to Turkey and then to Germany to be operated on. He kept significant mental sequelae. The second, despite four operations, still has pieces of metal in his arms and legs and cannot carry a heavy load. Nine years later, the psychological sequelae affect the whole family.
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