PALESTINE
Tue 09 Jul 2024 8:35 am - Jerusalem Time
Horrific testimonies... Euro-Med: Tank chains crushed the besieged people while they were alive
-Dina Jahish: I picked up my father’s remains with my hands and found nothing but his hand and foot
-I found my uncle handcuffed and with signs of torture on his body. They killed his father in front of his eyes
Footage and private testimonies documented shocking details about a heinous Israeli crime that occurred against a Palestinian family on June 28, following a sudden incursion by the occupation into the “Shakoush” area northwest of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
The incursion took place under heavy fire cover, causing dozens of injuries and the displacement of hundreds of families from the incursion area and its surroundings, as the area was crowded with displaced people’s tents as it was considered a safe area.
After the Israeli army withdrew the next day, social media platforms were filled with a picture of a Palestinian woman crying in front of part of her father’s body, and her brother kissing his foot, which was what remained of his body.
Despite the scale of the horror and tragedy that the picture contains, the rest of the story includes something even more horrific because of the horrific crime that befell this family at the hands of Israeli soldiers and their tracked vehicles.
The woman who appeared in the photo that day was Dina Jahish, and the body belonged to her octogenarian father, Jamal Jahish.
Dina says, "We were inside a farm, and suddenly Israeli vehicles surrounded us from all the farm doors. When we saw them, we had to hide inside a concrete building, but we were bombarded by the vehicles, and all the families who were present were injured."
After the family members were injured inside the building, she decided to move from the farm with difficulty through the agricultural lands and trees, but 5 people remained, including elderly people who were unable to leave, and they were her father, Jamal, her uncle, Osama, her grandfather, her husband, and his brother.
After the Israeli army withdrew from the area, Dina returned with her brothers to search for her father and the rest of the family, but she was shocked to see small parts of their bodies remaining after they had been tortured and run over by Israeli tanks, which crushed their bodies with their chains.
Regarding her reaction when she arrived at the bodies of her family members and her father, she said, “The feeling is difficult. I collected my father’s remains with my hands. The mechanisms completely crushed my father’s body, and my grandfather (crushed) half of his body. I found only a hand and a foot of my father, and I found my uncle Osama handcuffed. He had been exposed.” He was tortured and his body was blue. They killed my uncle’s father and brother (my father) in front of his eyes.”
Ajhaish confirms that Israeli soldiers got out of the vehicles, tortured her family members, and tied their hands before killing them. She described what happened as an “unnatural massacre.”
Dina Ajhaish was expecting to see her father alive, but she only found some parts of him. She says, "The Israeli army did not respect the dead among us. They tied them up, tortured them, and chopped them under the chains of Israeli vehicles."
The young man, Muhammad Jamal Ajhaish, appeared in the photo that was widely circulated, wearing the “blue shirt.”
He spoke about his shock, saying, "I appeared in the famous photo with the same blue shirt. When I returned to see my father, I tried to carry him, but I was shocked by the situation and what they were subjected to. My wish was to see my father, say goodbye to him, and kiss him. I found nothing of his body except his foot, and this is his identity, and this is his blood."
The young man Yasser Osama Jahish, who lost his father in this crime, also spoke, and said, “I, my father, the martyr Osama Jahish, my grandfather, my cousins, and my family members are all martyrs in this crime. Our martyrs are not numbers. We are also not numbers. We have the right to live in safety and freedom. I was communicating with... My father, on the night of the event, was telling me that he was fine, and I told him that I felt that something might happen to him, and two hours later my brother informed me that they were now surrounded in the Shakoush area and all of them were injured.”
He continued, "With what right and conscience do they have to be surrounded by Israeli vehicles and killed? I went to the Red Cross to coordinate their removal and release them from the siege while they were injured, and the Red Cross informed us that there was no coordination to move to save them."
He added, "We are not numbers. We are the owners of rights and freedom and a state under occupation. We have the right to live like any other state. What will children born of war do? The injured die in their beds, and the children's educational life has stopped."
Earlier, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory confirmed that the Israeli army used its tanks to deliberately run over Palestinian civilians alive and crush their bodies, during its ground operations in the Gaza Strip. The Observatory documented 4 cases of similar crimes that occurred in Gaza City and the north and south of the Strip.
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Horrific testimonies... Euro-Med: Tank chains crushed the besieged people while they were alive