91-year-old returns medal in protest

A 91-year-old Dutch man who along with his family was honoured by Israel for shielding a Jew from the Nazis, has handed back his medal after six of his relatives were killed in a Gaza air strike.

Henk Zanoli returned his Righteous Among the Nations award to the Israeli ambassador in The Hague this week after an Israeli F-16 destroyed his great-niece’s Gaza home, killing all inside.

‘‘It is with great sorrow that I am herewith returning the medal I received as an honour and a token of appreciation from the State of Israel for the efforts and risks taken by my mother and her family in saving the life of a Jewish boy during the German occupation,’’ Zanoli said in a letter.

According to Zanoli’s letter addressed to the Israeli ambassador, the bomb dropped by the Israeli military on July 20, during its massive Gaza offensive, flattened a four-storey building at the Bureij Refugee Camp, killing all inside.

‘‘The great-great grandchildren of my mother have lost their grandmother, three uncles, an aunt and a cousin at the hands of the Israeli military,’’ Zanoli said in the letter, published by liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

‘‘It is particularly shocking and tragic that today, four generations on, our family is faced with the murder of our kin in Gaza. Murder carried out by the State of Israel,’’ Zanoli said. ‘‘For me to hold on to the honour granted to me by the State of Israel under these circumstances, would be an insult . . . to those in my family, four generations on, who lost no less than six of their relatives in Gaza,’’ Zanoli said.