(Previous Incident Code: ISPT158 )

At least five children were killed and six others were injured by alleged Israeli airstrikes or Palestinian rocket misfires on Faluja Cemetery in the Al-Faluja area in Jabalia camp on August 7, 2022.

Shafa News reported that five people were killed and a number of others were injured when Israeli forces struck a group of citizens near Al-Faluja cemetery.

Shms News provided the name of those killed in the incident: Jamil Ihab Najm, 15 years old; Jamil Najm Najm, 6 years old; Nazmi Fayez Abu Karsh, 16 years old; Hamed Haider Najm, 17 years old; Mohamed Salah Najm, 17 years old. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, three of the children killed has participated in a support program for trauma victims in Gaza.

Amir Al-Hal reported that at 6:30 or 7:45, the cemetery was bombed and there were about 15 people inside the cemetary at the time. As a result of the bombing, 11 people were killed and the rest were seriously injured.

Mondoweiss provided details about the five children killed:

Jamil Ihab was the oldest of four siblings, loved to accompany his father to work, and dreamed of one day being a doctor. His father, Ihab, described “If you saw him even once, you would love him”. Prior to the strikes, father Ihab had gone to the supermarket and the children were bored from being stuck inside and decided to go to the nearby cemetery. “When the bomb fell, my wife started screaming, not knowing yet what had happened or where the bomb had dropped,” Ihab recounted. Ihab ran to the cemetery where a number of the neighbors had gathered. “I immediately rushed to the place where my family and neighbors had gathered, looking for my son. I recognized part of his t-shirt, and instantly knew that he had been there,” Ihab said. “I started to collect his body parts. Our sons were targeted in front of our eyes, and we collected their parts with our own hands,” he said.

Jamil Najm was a member of the family of four, and was supposed to start first grade this year.

Hamed Haider went to the cemetery with his cousins to try and get some fresh air. He was one of six family members, and was supposed to start tawjihi, his secondary school final exams, in the upcoming school year.

Mohamed Salah was supposed to start his final year of high school next month with his cousin Hamed. He was described as “as an excellent young man with great manners, who was loved by everyone in his neighborhood” by his family of seven. Mohamed was accompanying his cousins to the cemetery to escape the heat.

Nazmi Fayez was a friend and neighbour of the Najm children and was one of a family of 11, in addition to being a promising football player. Nazmi’s 23 year old brother Ismael had accompanied them to the cemetery but left just 10 minutes before the airstrike. Ismael told Mondoweiss that their last conversation together had been foreboding, as the boys discussed what would happen to them if they were killed. One of the boys, Muhammad Salah Nijm, said he had a feeling he would die as a martyr. Another one of the boys, his friend Hamed, told him: “if you die, I will die too, we should be together.” Nathmi had also replied: “you will go and leave me alone? If we’re going to die, I’m going with you.”

Felesteen News described the events that led up to the deaths: the four cousins from the Najm family and their friend from the Abu Karsh family were in the cemetery across from their home in the Al-Faluja area in Jabalia camp sitting next to the tomb of their grandfather Jamil when missiles struck and “ turning their tender bodies into bloody tatters” to the extent that their families could hardly identify their bodies.

Muhammad Abu Radwan, one of the eyewitnesses, rushed to the site of the strikes and told Felesteen News that “I only saw smoke rising from the place after the bombing of the children, and they were in a dire state”. The citizen Nabil Diab told Felesteen News “minutes before their targeting, I was in the cemetery. I asked them to leave the place quickly, but they did not hear my words, and they used to sit in the cemetery for many years”.

Eyewitnesses told Al-Ayyam: “These children used to play near the grave of their grandfather, according to his will before his death, where the families of the children, who are cousins, live at a distance of 25 meters from the grave of the grandfather. They were having fun sometimes and sitting at another time, and suddenly we heard the sound of a big explosion, and smoke rose to reveal the remains of these martyrs scattered among the graves.”

A tweet from @moieen92 added that one of the children, Nazmi, was visiting his mother’s grave at the time of the strikes and that he was killed on his mother’s grave. Palestine Today News Agency added that 16 year old Nazmi used to water his mother’s grave with water. Nazmi’s father, Fayez, told Palestine Today News Agency that “I received the news of my son’s death with great shock. Nazmi breathed his last inside the hospital near Sheikh Zayed, after describing his health condition as very critical as a large part of his face and stomach were deformed and torn by shrapnel.”

The majority of sources that reported on this incident attributed the three strikes to Israeli forces. Haaretz News reported that Israeli defense officials confirmed off the record that Israel was responsible for the death of the five children after an army inquiry into the incident. Several Israeli senior officers had originally said the children were most likely killed by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.