A boy of nine called Mohammed al-Masri sat quietly next to his father, listening and, as far as I could tell, absorbing every word. His father, Youssef al-Masri, was talking about the moment on the first day of the war that a strike hit their small farming community in northern Gaza, only around 800 metres from the boundary wire with Israel. Mohammed was the middle son. His little brother, Marwan, was seven. Ibrahim was 11. Both were killed, along with three of Mohammed’s cousins, two friends and a 21-year-old neighbour.
In the village they blamed Israel. Mohammed’s father, who is a policeman, said Israel had committed a heinous crime. He talked about replaying in his head constantly the memory of picking up his sons’ bodies, which were ripped open by shrapnel and high explosives. Israel insists he is blaming the wrong side. The Israeli military spokesman told me he could not be 100 per cent forensically certain, as it was a chaotic time, but their best assessment was that the deaths were caused by an Islamic Jihad missile falling short of its target in Israel. It was supposed to kill Israelis. Instead, it had killed Palestinians. Israeli forces, he said, were not active in the area at the time of the strike.
Content from our partners
