On September 30th, 2000, the world was echoing with a tragic event of Israeli murder of 12-year-old Palestinian child Mohammad Al-Durra, who was killed in cold blood while laying in his father’s lap at Natzarim checkpoint.
His memory still resonates to this day as a testimony on Israel’s brutal treatment of children amd continuation of Israeli genocide that had started long time before October 7, 2023.
The footage of Mohammad was compared to other iconic images of children under attack such as the boy in the Warsaw ghetto in1943, the Vietnamese girl doused with napalm in 1972, and the firefighter carrying the dying baby in Oklahoma in 1995.
For Palestinians, Mohammed Al-Durrah’s murder, which was aired simultaneously, stands as one of the most harrowing and defining images of the Second Intifada that its heart-rending intensity is beyond all rational understanding.
At the Crime Scene
Two days after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, Saladin Road was crowded with a momentous movement of Palestinian students who were going to school and lots of people were walking around as well.
At about 1 p.m., a group of angry Palestinians approached the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in the middle of the Gaza Strip, where Israeli occupation soldiers were stationed at a hot point in Saladin Road, harassing and obstructing people’s way.
Shortly after, thousands of people started throwing stones at the Israeli military vehicles, which increased hour by hour as Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets at people in an attempt to disperse them.
40 people were injured by rubber bullets and tear gas in an instant. As the situation flared up, shooting started and bullets were flying around.
People, including children, started to run quickly in search of shields to hide behind them. Ambulances were arriving and taking the injured away.
Amid the deafening barrage of gunfire raining down from above, communication became nearly impossible, and children were too frightened to cross the streets, where numerous bodies lay on the ground.
People were running, and falling down; they didn’t know where the bullets were coming from, they were just trying to hide.
Between a low wall and a large metal barrel under a barrage of bullets, the child and his father were hiding but trapped under gunfire. The father continued to move his hand and calling for help, vainly trying to shield his son from the bullets which were coming right at them.
A boom took place and filled the space with white fog, the boy was alive then but injured in his leg. As the fog vanished, the boy was seen lying down on his father’s lap bleeding from his stomach and the blood was pooling under his legs. The father was shockingly sitting against the wall, not moving.
The ambulances struggled repeatedly to reach the site, hindered by the relentless gunfire. Eventually, Jamal and his slain son Mohammad were transported to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza after one ambulance successfully navigated through the chaos.
Within moments, the shooting subsided, prompting the boys to scatter in all directions, fleeing the scene under harrowing conditions.
Same Crimes, Same Butcher
24 years after the tragic murder of child Mohammad, Israeli war crime machinery is still slaughtering Palestinian children day and night in both the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and now in Lebanon.
From the second Intifada outset in 2000 to six years later, at least 4973 Palestinians were killed, including 1,262 children, and over 10,000 children were also injured.
Despite that Israel tried to deny Mohammed Al-Durrah’s killing and sparked debates in the international media, photojournalist Talal Abu Rahama, who captured the scenes of the crime, won a case in a french court, proving after 13 years that his camera was truer than the Israeli narrative.
Gaza Government Media Office reported that Israel has killed 16,891 Palestinain children in Gaza during its genocide, including 171 infants who were born and killed in the genocide, and other 710 children under age of ten since in the onset of the war in Oct. 7, 2023.
UNICEF said at least 143 children were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, adding that one Palestinian child, on average, was killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, every two days since October 2023, a nearly three-and-a-half-fold increase from the previous nine months.
According to Lebanese official, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes since last Oct. 8, 2023 has reached 1,247, including women and children, with some 5,278 injured.
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