May 15, 2021: Maha Mohammad Abd al-Aal al-Hadidi (Abu Hatab), age unknown, was killed by Israeli missiles that struck her family’s home in the al-Shati refugee camp, in Gaza.
She was killed along with her four sons Suhaib Muhammad al-Hadidi (14 years),
Yahya Mohammad Sobhi al-Hadidi (10 years),
Abd al-Rahman Mohammad al-Hadidi (8 years)
and Osama Mohammad al-Hadidi (6 years).
The only surviving child was her five-month old son, who rescue workers found in the rubble, held in the arms of his dead mother, with a leg fractured in three places.
Saturday’s strikes hit at the conclusion of Eid al-Fitr, usually a time of joy when Muslim families gather to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Friday, Omar’s mother had taken him and his brothers to visit their cousins nearby in the Shati refugee camp outside Gaza City where they all lived.
The father, Mohammad al-Hadidi, told the Al-Arabiya News Agency, “The kids put on their Eid clothes, took their toys and headed off to their uncle’s house to celebrate. They called in the evening to beg to stay the night and I said OK. I slept at home alone… (and) woke up suddenly to the sound of bombing,” he said.
Soon a neighbor called to say an Israeli missile had hit his brother-in-law’s home.
“I hurried over as fast as I could, but when I got there the home was rubble, and rescue workers were pulling out bodies.” His wife and four of his five children were among the dead, along with his sister-in-law and her four children. Only his five month old baby, Omar, survived.
The Palestinian Center For Human Rights (PCHR) said that at approximately 01:30 after midnight, Israeli warplanes launched six missiles at a 3-story house belonging to ‘Alaa Abdul ‘Aal Abu Hatab in the refugee camp, without informing its residents to evacuate.
As a result, 9 people, including 2 women and 7 children, were killed and identified as: the house owner’s wife, Yasmine Mohammed Khamis Abu Hatab, 31, and her 4 children, Yousef, 11, Maryam, 8, Belal, 9, and Yamin, 6, the house owner’s sister, Maha Mohammed Abdul ‘Aal Abu Hatab “al-Hadidi”, 35, and 3 of her children, Osama, 6, ‘Abdul Rahman and Suhaib, 13, Mohammed Subhi al-Hadidi, while their 5-month old brother was moderately injured.
On the same day, Israeli missiles killed 21 Palestinians Killed, including 2 Women, 8 Children, and Girl with a disability, and injured 113 Palestinians, including 33 Women and 36 Children.
The PCHR said in its report: “On the sixth day of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, the death toll reached 143, including forty children and twenty-two women, while the number of injuries reached 655, including 194 children and 154 women.”
Tallying the Casualties from Ten Days of Bombardment – IMEMC
For the sixth consecutive day, Israeli forces escalated their offensive on the Gaza Strip, continued their indiscriminate and intense air, sea, and land strikes as part of their collective punishment and retaliation policy.
Israeli forces bombed residential buildings filled with civilians, massacring entire families, and destroyed the infrastructure in city centers and densely populated neighborhoods. They also targeted agricultural lands, governmental facilities, and military sites belonging to Palestinian armed groups, rendering the Gaza Strip an unsafe zone.
The forced displacement of thousands of residents from their houses in the eastern Gaza Strip continued due to the violent artillery shelling and the firing of smoke grenades which spread bad smells and caused nausea and eye irritation. On its 73rd anniversary, this scene reminded us of the Palestinian Nakba.
Maha was from the al-Shati refugee camp, in Gaza. Source: PCHR, PCHR, IMEMC, IMEMC