Israeli Bombing Took 12-Year-Old's Leg, Her Family, and Finally Her Life

"Dunia's story is the distillation of the Palestinian child's experience in Gaza," said one campaigner. "Displaced, bombed, orphaned, maimed, and finally killed by the Israeli military."


Dunia Abu Mohsen, a 12-year-old girl, was killed by an Israeli tank-fired shell that hit al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 17, 2023.
(Photo: Defense for Children International - Palestine)

JESSICA CORBETT
Dec 18, 2023

Among the more than 19,450 people killed in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip this year is Dunia Abu Mohsen, a 12-year-old who previously lost a leg in an Israeli airstrike and shared the experience in an interview published Monday.

Abu Mohsen was killed on Sunday by an Israeli tank-fired shell that hit al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP), which spoke with the child on-camera last month.

She began the interview—filmed on November 25, during a seven-day truce between Israeli forces and Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza—by recalling the attack that took not only her leg but also the lives of her parents, a brother, and a sister.

The girl spoke of her dreams for the future: "I want someone to take me abroad, to any country, to install a prosthetic leg, to be able to walk like other people. So that I can move and go out and play with my siblings."

"I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children," she added. "I only want one thing: for the war to end."

The war—launched after a Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed over 1,100 people on October 7—continues, extending decades of Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israeli forces and the country's right-wing government.

"Dunia's story is the distillation of the Palestinian child's experience in Gaza," DCIP's Miranda Cleland said on social media Monday. "Displaced, bombed, orphaned, maimed, and finally killed by the Israeli military."

DCIP released a year-in-review report on Friday. It begins: "This year has no comparison in the history of Israeli forces' efforts to exert total control over the Palestinian people and violate children's rights. Throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces killed Palestinian children at an unfathomable, unprecedented rate."

Since the war began over two months ago, Israeli forces have killed over 7,870 Palestinian children in Gaza, according to local officials. Thousands more remain missing under the rubble.