FAMILY OF BOYS KILLED BY ISRAEL ON GAZA BEACH DEMAND NEW INQUIRY
Documents show the Israeli military used armed drones in strikes aimed at the children, aged between 9 and 11
Montaser still cannot play the game that brought him and his brother joy, four years after his young sibling and three cousins were killed by Israeli bombs on a Gaza beach.
The sound of a football being kicked revives memories of shells, screaming and horror , including a scene of bloodshed he wants to shut out forever.
“I still cannot forget,” says Montaser, now 17. “I was running quickly to flee the area. I survived but I lost my brother and my cousins.”
Their murders occurred only metres from the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Montaser is the sole survivor of the Bakr children who were hit by the Israeli military on July 16, 2014, while they played football at the height of the enclave’s last war.
The four boys killed were between nine and 11 years old. Zakaria, 10, was his brother. Ismail, Ahed and Mohamed were his cousins. They were four of more than 500 children who were killed by the Israeli military in the 50-day war.
Israel closed its investigation into what happened that day in mid-2015, claiming the area was a “Hamas compound” used by militants.
But journalists there said they saw a deliberate attack on young children playing near a hut often frequented by fishermen.
It was initially reported that Israel accidentally shelled the children from ships.
Now the family is seeking justice in the International Criminal Court after new details about the tragedy came to light.
American investigative news site The Intercept has uncovered a confidential report from the Israeli military police that detailed how officers had been tracking the children with armed drones.
Two missiles were launched. The first killed one boy and the second, launched without authorisation, killed his three young companions as they tried to flee the scene.
Sitting on a worn brown couch in the family’s Gaza City home next to his father Ahed, 58, and beneath a picture of his dead brother, Montaser recalls the serious wounds he received all over his body.
His physical rehabilitation was long and he has still not recovered from the shock.
“I stopped going to school,” Montaser says. “I can’t go while my brother and cousins are deprived of this right.
“How can I continue my life? I can’t sleep, I keep remembering what happened.”
The anger against Israel and its military is still raw for the family. They still deny Israel’s claims that the killing was an accident.
“Israel doesn’t make mistakes, Israel owns the most advanced technology in the world,” Ahed says. “They targeted the children directly. They killed them with three missiles.”
The family is being helped by lawyers from inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They are calling for those responsible for the two deadly drone attacks to be jailed.
“When the Israeli officer asked for a clarification, he didn’t wait for the answer and launched the missile to kill the children,” says Samer Zaqout, a lawyer at the Almezan Centre for Human Rights.
“So this officer committed a violation against international law and he is supposed to be punished, to be an example for others.”
The family lawyer, Suhad Bishara of Arab rights group Adalah, says she filed an appeal against the military’s closure of the case in June 2015 on the family’s behalf, but they have waited three years for an answer from the Israeli Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit.
Ms Bishara says the Israeli military investigations are “far from being in any way independent, efficient, or transparent”.
The lack of conclusion reduces the chance that those responsible will face criminal conviction. So the Bakr family, which has not received any compensation or apology from Israel, is now setting its sights on a higher, more independent legal entity.
“Israel is supposed to confess its mistake and apologise to the family,” Ahed says. “Until now, we haven’t witnessed any justice in our case.
“We will sue Israel in the International Criminal Court.”
He has issued a public invitation for lawyers around the world to help him with his case.
But until the law holds Israel responsible the family’s suffering will continue, as will their search for answers as to why their children were decapitated as they played football.
“The boys went to play football at the beach because there are no places near our home to play freely, we live in a crowded area,” says fisherman Mohammed Bakr, 57, father of Ismail, 10.
“I am going every day to the beach, looking for the remains of my son’s body that was torn apart by the missile. I did not raise my child so an Israeli pilot could kill him in cold blood.”