Two Dead and 4 Children Injured in Israeli Nail Bomb Attack in Beit Hanoun, Gaza

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"She came in through and it wasn’t clear she was injured. Suddenly a lot of blood came from her nose and she vomited. All of the family saw this – her little brothers were very scared. She had just been playing in the front of the house."

This is a mother describing to us her daughter, 9-year-old Sammah as she came in to her home at 4pm after the Israeli army reportedly shelled and fired four bombs into and around a residential area in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza. She is now in a semi-critical condition in hospital, suffering extensive blood loss and very low haemoglobin. She was hit by shrapnel and 'flechettes’ from a nail bomb that landed 100m away, causing internal bleeding to the chest, severe head trauma and nails embedded in her body. Shells containing flechettes are illegal under international law if fired into densely populated civilian areas and SamahEid El-Massry is one of four children injured in the attack yesterday, July 21st. 

Two young men were killed: Mohammad Al-Kafarneh, 23, from severe shrapnel injuries in his back and chest and Kasim Al-Shinbary, 19, caused by injuries from nails embedded in his skull and shrapnel wounds to the back. It was unclear earlier whether they were resistance fighters or if they were civilians – the Israeli Occupation Force called them 'militants’ – just as they called the four children, aged between 4 and 11, who were left hospitalised by their injuries 'militants’. Their parents could be found weeping over their loved ones in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last night.
We first visited Haitham Thaer Qasem a four year old boy and a first and only child. He was sleeping on the hospital bed, occasionally gasping for breath through the strapping around his nose. He had suffered deep nasal trauma, and flechette darts from the nail bomb were still embedded in his tiny body, where they had pierced his back, right elbow and right leg. He was 200m from the impact of the bomb.

In his hospital ward his mother was standing to one side crying quietly and another relative at Haitham’s bedside explained what had happened.

"We had asked Haitham to get shopping for her from the market…then we heard the bombings and somebody came to our home and told our family that he was in the hospital and was injured in the bombing. We came quickly to the hospital."