Gaza - the city of dead children

Abdul Rahim Abu Halima, 14, (wearing a yellow T-shirt)

Abdul Rahim Abu Halima, 14, was killed when his home was hit by an Israeli white phosphorus artillery shell in Atatra, in north-eastern Gaza on 4 January. He died along with two of his brothers, Zayed, eight, and Hamza, six, his sister Shahed, who was 15-months-old, and their father, Saad Allah, 45, who was sheltering them in his arms in the hallway when the shell struck. The inside walls of the house are still blackened and pieces of shrapnel and shell casing are spread across the hallway beneath a gaping hole in the roof. "He was a very active boy, a little bit nervous sometimes, but he was good at football," said his brother Mahmoud, 20. "He played with the neighbours and was in a team at school. We shared a room together and he was always trying to get me out of there. I loved him so very much. He was a wonderful boy."



Mohammad Abu Halima, 16, a cousin of Abdul Rahim, was shot dead by Israeli troops as he tried to take his injured relatives from the burning house in Atatra to hospital on 4 January. He was in the house next door when the shell struck and ran to try to help another cousin, Matar, loading up the injured on the back of a tractor. Both boys were killed. "He was still at school," said his father, Hikmat, 42. "He wanted to go abroad after school to study at university. He was a quiet boy, very obedient and did whatever I asked him." Many of the houses in Atatra were left burnt out or destroyed. "They came in here as if they were fighting a country like America," said Mohammad's aunt, Suhaida. 40. "But we're not fighters, just civilians. We're only Gaza."

The Abu Eisha family At about 1am on 5 January, an Israeli air strike hit the house of the Abu Eisha family in Gaza City. The missile dropped through the top floors of the house, detonating on the first floor where most of the family was sleeping. Among the dead were Ghaida, eight, and her brothers, Mohammad, 10, and Sayyd, 12. The survivors spent a long time searching in the darkness using only the lights from their mobile phones until they found the bodies lying in rubble outside the house. Their parents died alongside them. Saber Abu Eisha, 49, the children's uncle, was in the basement with about 24 others from the family, who all survived. "Ghaida was in the second grade at school. She was like any little girl, she was pretty, she loved to play. Sometimes she was laughing, sometimes she was crying," said her uncle. "She liked to dress up, wearing a bride's dress, showing off. Her brother Mohammad was always fixing bicycles and Sayyd used to talk about how he wanted to be a pilot." The family was not wealthy: their father once worked as a labourer in Israel but had been unemployed or an occasional taxi driver for many years. He and his brothers had been building the only part-finished family house for the last 20 years.

The Abu Eishas still cannot understand why their house was targeted, except that there are open areas nearby where militants have launched rockets in the past. Several other houses nearby were also badly damaged in the war. "It's all a result of political failure," said Saber. Two children from the family survived: Dalal, 12, and Ahmed, five. Both are deeply traumatised. "Whenever they hear a loud noise, they fall to the ground," said Saber. "Sometimes I think it's easier for the people who are dead and it's harder for those who are living."

Amal Abed Rabbo, two, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers outside her family's five-storey house in the village of Izbit Abed Rabbo, in eastern Gaza, on 7 January. Shortly after midday, soldiers from an Israeli tank ordered the family out of the house, according to her father, Khalid, 30. There was gunfire from the tank and Amal and her sister Souad, seven, were killed immediately. Another sister, Samer, four, was severely injured – she is now paralysed in hospital in Belgium. Later, the soldiers demolished the house. When she was shot, Amal was carrying her favourite toy, a brown bear, which still lay in the ruins yesterday. Khalid, a policeman under the pre-Hamas authority, said: "Israel knows very well that no one in this house belonged to Hamas. I want to know from the Israeli army: why did they kill my daughters? What have they done?"

Shahed Abu Sultan, eight, was sitting on her father's lap mid-morning on 5 January, just outside the entrance to their small home in the Jabaliya refugee camp. An Israeli helicopter was flying overhead and, according to the family, was shooting down towards their houses. Shahed was hit by a single bullet to the head that killed her instantly. She was one of 10 children. Her father, Hussein, 40, wrote a message to his daughter which hangs on their sitting room wall: "I cried a sea of tears for you but those tears have not calmed my heart because you left, my daughter. I have no tears remaining, but my heart wants to go on crying blood, my daughter, my beloved Shahed. Your smooth smile, your sweet and angelic face, we miss you with each moment, our darling. My daughter Shahed died once, but I die a million times a day... My heartache will go on for ever."

Adham Mutair, 17, was shot by Israeli troops at his home near Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, on 9 January. Israeli tanks had taken up positions in the area around the houses and the family had been trapped inside their home for a week. Adham went upstairs to the roof to check on their pigeons, which were housed in a large hut. As he stepped out into the open, he was shot three times and collapsed. Two of his brothers carried him out of the house along a back route. Using a motorcycle and then a car, they carried him to the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He died the next day. Most of the family could not get out of the house to make it to the burial. "We haven't even had a chance to set up a funeral tent to mourn him properly," said his uncle, Khader, 53. "I don't think the rest of the world understands how painful our lives are here."
Lina Hassan, 10, was killed by an Israeli shell which hit her as she walked to the shops next to the UN school in Jabaliya on January 6. "She asked me for a shekel to go to the shops to buy something for her and her brothers and sisters," said her father, Abdul, 37. "I heard the shell and I ran out. I saw her body lying on the ground - part of her head was missing." Lina was the eldest of six children. "They are targeting the Palestinian people. Was my daughter Hamas? Do you think a 10-year-old even knows the difference between Hamas and Fatah?" Abdul's younger children have asked him repeatedly about their sister. "I told them she is up in heaven and one of them said: 'I want to go and stay with her up there'."



Mohammad Shaqoura, nine, was killed by the Israeli shelling at the UN school in Jabaliya on 6 January. He was playing marbles in the street outside with his friends in the middle of the afternoon. "I went to help the injured. I didn't realise Mohammad was one of them," said his father, Basim, 40. As he was helping one young man, he turned and saw his own son lying dead on the road. "The injury was in the back of his dead. He was lying with his face on the ground," he said. "Mohammad was the best of children. Anything I asked him to do he would do. On the day before he died. he was watching a religious television programme for children called Birds of Paradise. He asked me: 'Those wings on the birds, are they martyrs' wings?' I try to talk about him as much as possible with my other children. But it's hard for them to understand."