Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.
Israeli forces have killed thousands of newborns and babies in Gaza in the last 10 months of its genocide, a rights group reports after Israel killed a pair of twin newborns who were just 4 days old on Tuesday.
According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has killed 2,100 Palestinian babies under the age of two since October, out of a total of 17,000 children killed.
This is a rate of about 210 babies per month, or 7 babies a day, killed by Israel’s extermination campaign, and Euro-Med reports that infant deaths are being reported every day in Gaza due to Israel’s starvation campaign, bombings and destruction of the medical system.
Most of the infant deaths to starvation and thirst are not included in the official death count from the Palestinian health ministry, which surpassed 40,000 on Thursday, due to vast difficulties in counting such deaths; the death toll is likely far higher than the official death count, experts have said. Many pregnancies have also been forcibly ended due to Israel’s assault on hospitals, the group notes.
Just on Tuesday, Israel killed Aser and Aysal Muhammad Abu al-Qumsan, twin babies, along with their mother and grandmother in an airstrike on a residential building in Deir al-Balah. Their mother, Juman, had just given birth to the two babies four days earlier.
The babies’ father had left the apartment to obtain the birth certificates for the babies when he got a phone call from his neighbors that his family members had been killed by Israel. Heartbreaking video shows him screaming in grief for the loss of his family, begging to see them again and losing consciousness from the intensity of his anguish.
The strike appeared to be targeted precisely on the apartment holding al-Qumsan’s babies and wife. Picture obtained by CNN shows just one corner of a multistory building bombed out, seemingly affecting just one unit.
Euro-Med notes that Israeli forces — due in part to U.S. military assistance — have the technological capability to carry out strikes on exact locations of military targets, but choose to target civilian areas despite international law mandating that militaries minimize civilian deaths.
Al-Qumsan’s story is one of many such stories of parents who have lost their newborns to Israel’s genocide. Euro-Med also notes the story of a man whose child was beheaded during an Israeli airstrike in a supposed safe zone in Rafah in May. The man, Abdul Hafez Al-Najjar, lost his child, Ahmed, who was just 18 months old. Ahmed’s mother and three of Al-Najjar’s brothers were also killed.
“My child Ahmed was very beautiful. He was a year and a half old. He was beheaded in the Israeli bombing. His head was separated from his body. When I saw him, I felt distressed. He was buried without his head,” Al-Najjar told Euro-Med.
Euro-Med notes that Israel’s killing of babies, children and people of reproductive age are proof that its acts carry genocidal intent under the criteria of preventing births and suppressing population growth rates.
25 Years of Truthout: An important fundraising appeal
This September, Truthout is celebrating 25 years of publication. For over two decades, we have been a trusted source for fiercely independent journalism thanks to readers like you.
As we look to the next 25 years, we have launched a special fundraising campaign. At this moment, we have a goal to raise $31,000 in the next 24 hours.
We are asking for your support at this juncture because we face greater threats than ever before in our organizational history. Trump and his MAGA allies are determined to control the information ecosystem, and movement-based organizations are subject to dangerous censorship and scrutiny.
If you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make a significant impact on our work and our legacy. Anything you can do makes a difference!