Monday, August 25, 2014

Gazan family grieves child loss in Israeli airstrike



Having gone through more than two decades of fertility treatment, a Gazan family is grieving the loss of their eight-year-old child in the recent Israeli military attacks against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.



The child, identified as Mahmoud al-Majdalawi, lost his life earlier this month when an Israeli F-16 fighter jet fired a missile at his uncle’s house in the Gaza Strip as he was playing with his cousins there.



“We were sitting in this room. The F-16 hit my brother’s house next to my house without any warning. I started shouting and calling on my son. He was at his uncle’s. My wife’s foot was injured. I ran to my brother’s house and found my only child dead. My young nephew’s body was in pieces everywhere. Shrapnel was in my son’s head. He was killed right away,” Ahmad, Mahmoud’s father, told Press TV.



“I waited to be a father for 22 years, and now he is gone. Even our house is destroyed. But, we will never give up even if we are all killed. Arabs have put their hands in the hands of Israel and left us to be killed.”



“I had waited for 22 years to have him in my arms. Today is his eighth birthday. He used to tell me he wants a cake and a bike for his birthday. I lost him within seconds, within minutes. The room he was in at his uncle’s house is still full of Mahmoud’s innocent blood.”


Mahmoud’s mother, Heyam al-Majdalawi, said, “Every day, a wife is widowed and a mom losses her child. The land is irrigated with blood rather than water. Our blood is cheap to Arabs and Israelis.”


Some 2,100 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives and over 10,200 have been injured in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which began on July 8.


Nearly 400,000 Palestinian children are in immediate need of psychological help due to “catastrophic and tragic impact” of the Israeli war, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).


The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, has been launching retaliatory attacks against Israel.


MP/HJL/HMV



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