Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Ali El-Daba does not want his family in Gaza to die in an attack by Israel. The 40 year old man was then forced to split his family into several regions.
He said his wife Lina, 42, was looking after their two sons and two daughters in Gaza City in the north. He himself moved to Khan Younis in the south with three other children.
El-Daba said he was preparing for the worst. After seeing the bodies torn apart by the bombing and beyond recognition, he bought blue rope bracelets for his family members and tied them on both wrists.
“If something happens… this way I will recognize them,” he was quoted as saying Reuters, Thursday (26/10/2023).
El-Daba is not the only family that uses identification bracelets to identify if a family member died as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza. Other Palestinian families also buy or make bracelets for their children.
Some of them even wrote their names on various parts of their bodies to make the identification process easier. Ahmed Abu Al-Saba (35) is one of them.
“If Israeli occupation planes bomb us,” he said, according to Turkish media, Anadolu.
Al-Saba is not alone. Many other parents do that. This is not without reason. At least 2,055 children have been killed by Israeli attacks since Tel Aviv declared war on Hamas, the region’s rulers, two weeks ago.
“There are many martyrs, especially children, whose families are difficult to reach,” he said Al-Saba again. “Colonization doesn’t discriminate and bombs are everywhere.”
The same thing was also published in the US media, CNN International. It was told how the bodies of children were lying in a Gaza hospital with one of their legs showing writing in black ink on their skin.
“We received several cases where parents wrote their children’s names on their feet and stomachs,” said the head of the emergency unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Dr. Abdul Rahman Al Masri.
“Parents are worried that anything could happen and no one can identify their children,” he added. “This means they feel targeted at any time and could get hurt or become martyrs.”
A resident also said how Gazan children disappeared without knowing the jungle because of Israeli attacks. Some were found in heartbreaking conditions ranging from broken body parts to missing body parts.
“This is a new phenomenon that has just started in Gaza,” said one resident, speaking quietly.
“Many children disappeared, many arrived here with broken skulls… and it was impossible to identify them, it was only through the writing that they could be identified,” he said.
Previously mass burials had been permitted by local Muslim clerics. Before burial, medical personnel keep images and blood samples of the dead and number them.
A total of 756 Palestinians, including 344 children, were killed in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday. It said at least 6,546 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli bombardment since October 7, including 2,704 children.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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