Bashar Ahmad Sammour

May 12, 2021: Bashar Ahmad Sammour, 17, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.

He was one of at least twenty Palestinians killed during massive Israeli bombardment and shelling targeting all parts of the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli missiles struck homes, residential buildings, infrastructure, streets, and many other facilities.

In an airstrike during the night, Israeli missiles killed two children, identified as Mariam Mohammad Odah at-Tilbani, 3, and her brother Zeid, 5, in their home in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza city.

Media sources in Gaza said the soldiers killed three Palestinians and injured at least one, in an Israeli airstrike in the Nusseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.

They added that the Israeli missiles targeted Palestinians and buildings in one of the alleys of the refugee camp; the two slain Palestinians, and the injured, were moved to the nearby Al-Aqsa Hospital.

In addition, Palestinian medics and rescue teams found the corpse of one Palestinian under the rubble of a building in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza. Two Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes on the building, and the third is the one whose corpse was found today.

In Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the soldiers killed an elderly Palestinian man, and a child, when the army fired missiles into agricultural lands in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

During the 11-day Israeli assault on Gaza between May 10th and 21st, 2021, 247 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and 39 women; 1417 wounded, including 277 women and 412 children. 9 Israelis, including 2 children, were killed during the same time period.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which documented these attacks, has called upon the international Criminal Court to open an investigation into the occupation’s crimes during this military aggression, and reiterates its call upon the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfil their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights).

Bashar was from the Gaza Strip. Source: IMEMC