Description

Photos:
The Hassouna children:
Lina, age 14; Yousef, age 13; Yasmine,age 10; and Alaa, age 6.
Published by DCI-Palestine
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by Defense for Children International- Palestine (DCI-Palestine)

“The dogs came and ate the limbs of my dead parents”. Israeli snipers kill Palestinian children’s parents in front of them

Feb 4, 2025

Ramallah, February 4, 2025—Israeli forces killed the Hassouna parents in front of their four children in Gaza City last March, leaving the children with trauma and an uncertain future.

Israeli forces deliberately targeted the Hassouna family, including 14-year-old Lina, 13-year-old Yousef, 10-year-old Yasmine, six-year-old Alaa, and their parents, Amer and Nida, in Gaza City on the morning of March 23, 2024, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. Israeli forces shot Amer and Nida in front of their children then besieged the building where they hid. The children hid for two days without food or water and watched stray dogs eat parts of their parents' bodies until their uncles rescued them.

During an Israeli ground invasion in the Yaffa area of Jabalia refugee camp, north of Gaza City in February 2024, Amer Hassouna, his wife Nida, and their children, Lina, Yousef, Yasmine, and Alaa, were forced to flee their home. They sought refuge at the Turkish Orphanage Association, where they were besieged by Israeli forces for 22 days, unable to leave or secure basic needs such as food and water.

As the Israeli attacks intensified, the family took shelter under a staircase for the entire duration, fearing for their lives. Yousef went to the upper floor to retrieve some belongings but was spotted by an Israeli sniper stationed in a building across from the Turkish Association. Shortly after, an Israeli drone-fired missile struck nearby.

Amer’s brothers attempted to reach the area to help but were unable to advance due to the intensive presence of Israeli forces. Amer decided to leave with his wife and children after realizing the Turkish Association was likely to be targeted. As soon as they stepped out, Israeli snipers targeted the family. Amer was struck by 32 bullets, Nida by three bullets, and their daughter Lina by one bullet in the chest.

Despite their injuries, the family kept running until they reached an abandoned, partially constructed building. There, Amer and Nida continued to bleed in front of their children from 7 a.m. until 11:30 a.m., when they succumbed to their wounds.

“The hardest moment I went through was seeing the bodies of my mother and my father,” Yousef told DCIP. “I cried a lot for my father and mother. At that moment, I did not care about myself or my sisters. We spent two days without water or food.”

The four children were left trapped on the building’s lower floor alongside their parents’ bodies. Lina, still injured, continued to bleed, and her chest began to swell from the injury.

“I was struck with a bullet in the chest, with an entrance and an exit, which led to atrophy in the lung, but it was treated partially. I constantly blow-up balloons to strengthen the lung muscles,” Lina told DCIP. “What bothers me the most is the effect of the injury on my chest, where there are scars that are visible in a noticeable way, which sometimes makes me lose confidence. I need to undergo plastic surgery.”

Yousef called his uncles for help and told them that they were trapped, his parents had been killed, and his sister was bleeding. When night fell, stray dogs came to the ground floor where the children and their parents' bodies were located and sought to devour the bodies.

“All I cared about was my father and mother who were killed,” said Yousef. “I can’t forget when the dogs came and ate the limbs of my dead parents.”

“An Israeli quadcopter entered the place and started shooting at the bodies of my father and mother,” Yousef said. He called his sisters to go down and dragged his injured sister to the basement, where they hid behind water barrels for fear of being shot at.

The children remained trapped for two days without food or water and were forced to eat rotten food that they found. On the third day, despite the continuous shooting, their uncles took the risk and entered the building, saving the children.

While they were fleeing, one of the uncles was struck with a bullet in the eye, and lost his eye and part of his hearing as a result of the injury. Lina was brought to the Jordanian Hospital, which was the closest, but the hospital refused to receive them under instructions from the Israeli forces that the entry of any injured person meant the hospital would be directly targeted. After they pleaded for help and begged many times, the hospital allowed them to enter at great risk.

“I am taking care of 23 children,” Ali Hassouna, the guardian and one of the children’s uncles, told DCIP. “Including my children, the children of my injured brother Mohammad, who was injured while trying to rescue my brother Amer's children, as well as the children of my other brother who traveled two days before the war started and was unable to return because of the Israeli closure of the crossings.”

Ali described the hardships of being a guardian to all these children and added, “The most difficult thing I face is the large number of children I need to take care of. Each of them has different desires when it comes to playing, eating, or drinking, and I have to meet all of these desires.”

“The time we were hit by severe famine was the most difficult period in our lives, as I bought the last bag of flour for 2,800 shekels (about $776 USD), which was the last amount of money I had at the time,” Ali told DCIP. “I had to make sure that the flour bag lasted for as long as possible, so I only allowed each child to eat one meal a day, which was only half a loaf of bread so that we would not run out of flour. As for the adults, our share was less than half a loaf [of bread] a day, and we had to endure the hunger for the sake of these children.”

“The Al-Kuwait roundabout massacre was committed while I was there, and I narrowly escaped death, after which I decided to never go there even if we starved to death,” Ali told DCIP. “Once we ran out of flour, I had to use soybeans, and here began a new journey of suffering, as all the children were allergic to it.”

Israeli forces and tanks opened fire on individuals and groups of Palestinian people, killing 19 Palestinians and injuring 23 others, who were attempting to get flour and aid from a convoy in Al-Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City on March 23, 2024, also known as the second Flour Massacre, after the Rashid Street massacre on February 29, 2024.

The Israeli genocide has left children with a series of psychological symptoms related to fear of bombing, such as depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders, which affect their psychological safety and personal development.

“I face difficulty in dealing with Yousef because he does not want to stay at home. He always prefers to play and go out at night, but I do my best to protect him,” Ali said.

"Mom told us to take care of each other and love each other a lot,” Lina told DCIP. "I miss my mom and dad a lot. I stay awake all night because I miss them so much and I think about them."

“Lina suffers from insomnia and does not sleep at night. I pass by her many times at night to convince her to sleep, but to no avail,” Ali’s wife said, who is taking care of the children along with her husband. “I give tasks to everyone. The girls have to learn some household duties, and I try to get everyone involved in organizing, filling water, cleaning, and washing dishes.”

“Yasmine spends long hours crying silently and that this is the only way she can relieve her stress,” Ali’s wife told DCIP. “Alaa has developed an involuntary urination problem after this incident. There is no psychiatric or even organic medicine to treat it. I try to balance rewarding her sometimes and disciplining her other times, but to no avail.”

The absence of education and routine daily life amid this devastation in Gaza has become a crisis, jeopardizing the overall mental well-being of children.

“I miss school, but the situation is dangerous. Before the war, I was at the top of my class. I was an outstanding student. I wish to go back to school again,” Lina said.

Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, including children in indiscriminate and disproportionate manners with the purpose of killing them, exploiting the impunity given to the occupation. Israeli forces have caused permanent physical and psychological injuries for thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza during around 15 months of genocide, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

International criminal law prohibits serious atrocities, including the crime of genocide, the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and provides for individual criminal responsibility for perpetrators. The crime of genocide constitutes the deliberate killing, in whole or in part, a particular national or ethnic group with the aim of destroying said group. Genocide can result from killing or by creating conditions of life that are so unbearable it brings about the group’s destruction. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is an underlying act of genocide and amounts to a war crime.