The Gazan infants who never saw their first birthday
On Sept. 16, Gaza’s Health Ministry released a 649-page document containing the personal information of 34,344 Palestinians killed by Israel’s onslaught on the enclave over the past 11 months. The seemingly endless list is incomplete: more than 41,000 Palestinians have been martyred since October 7, according to Health Ministry figures, but many of them have not yet been fully identified. Over 11,300 of the identified victims are children, and 710 of them were killed before they turned 1.
These are the stories of six of those infants who were stolen from the world before even seeing their first birthday, as told by their families.
Asser and Aysal Abu Al-Qumsan, four days old
In August, people around the globe saw the images of 33-year-old Muhammad Abu Al-Qumsan holding the birth certificates of his newborn twins. Displaced from the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City in early October, his family had been forced to relocate to Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah, before fleeing again to an apartment in Deir Al-Balah in the center of the Strip. It was there that an Israeli artillery shell killed his twin infants, Asser and Aysal, just four days after they were born, along with their mother, Jumana.
On Aug. 10, Muhammad and Jumana were overjoyed when she gave birth to the twins after a difficult caesarean section at the American field hospital in Deir al-Balah. But before they knew it, that happiness was replaced by deep sorrow and pain. [Continue reading…]