The father of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammad al-Durrah, who was killed in cold blood by Israeli gunfire in 2000, has bid farewell to his family members who lost their lives in the ongoing Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
On September 30, 2000, Muhammad al-Durrah and his father Jamal were filmed crouching behind a concrete block on a street corner in Gaza as Israeli forces showered them with heavy gunfire.
Moments later, the terrorized boy collapsed dead on his father’s lap whose attempts to shield his son from bullets proved to be futile.
The footage was broadcast around the world and became the defining image of the Second Intifada (uprising).
On Sunday, 23 years after his son’s murder, Jamal al-Durrah lost his brothers in Israel’s ongoing deadly bombing campaign on Gaza.
In an interview with Turkey’s Anadolu Agency in 2021, Jamal said his son’s footage is a testament to hundreds of Israeli murders of Palestinians which largely go undocumented.
My son’s martyrdom “has not been forgotten by the world,” he added. “It will never be forgotten.”
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group waged a surprise operation against the occupying entity.
At least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday.
The bodies of more than 1,000 people are decaying under the ruins of buildings destroyed by Israel’s relentless bombardment, according to the Gaza Interior Ministry.
