The killing of Khaled Nabhan came amid a fresh wave of Israeli attacks across Gaza that pushed the Palestinian death toll in the 14-month onslaught to over 45,000.
Khaled Nabhan and his granddaughter Reem were both killed in separate Israeli bombardments of the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, Palestine.
(Photo: Nabhan family)
Brett Wilkins
Dec 16, 2024
COMMON DREAMS
Israel Defense Forces shelling on Monday killed a Palestinian man who became known around the world last year after he appeared in a video showing him mourning a granddaughter who was slain in another Israeli attack on Gaza.
Khaled Nabhan was killed during IDF bombardment of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Nabhan, also known as Abu Diaa, gained international recognition in November 2023 after widespread circulation of video footage of him cradling the lifeless body of his 3-year-old granddaughter Reem, who was killed along with her 5-year-old brother Tariq in an IDF airstrike on the Nuseirat camp. Nabhan and other relatives were wounded in the attack.
In the video, Nabhan kisses Reem's bruised and bloodied face as he bids farewell to the grandchild he called the "soul of my soul."
"She used to call me with her sweet voice, bring me food and water, and fill my days with happiness," Nabhan told Palestinian media at the time. "I would say to her, 'Oh my love, my heart, my eyes.'"
Tributes to Nabhan and condemnation of Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza were posted throughout social media on Monday.
"This isn't war it's the erasure of families and histories—with impunity," journalist Antoinette Lattouf said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Khaled Nabhan demonstrated more humanity in a single video than the entire Western bloc has in the last 14 months," said another account on X with more than 166,000 followers.
Nabhan's death came amid ongoing ferocious Israeli bombardment that killed at least scores of Palestinians on Sunday and Monday, pushing the death toll from Israel's 437-day onslaught to over 45,000—most of them women and children. More than 106,000 others have been injured and over 11,000 Palestinians are missing and believed dead and buried beneath rubble.
Gaza Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told reporters that at least 40 people including women and children were killed Sunday as Israeli troops stormed the Khalil Awida school in Beit Hanoun, where forcibly displaced Palestinian families were sheltering. According toQuds News Network, IDF troops kidnapped all the men sheltering there while forcing others to flee and leaving the wounded without medical treatment.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of Gaza's media office, said Sunday that 42 Palestinians were killed in an IDF strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp and four Gaza Civil Defense personnel and Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed al-Louh were slain in an attack on a field headquarters, among numerous other casualty events.
Israel—which is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—said its forces targeted terrorists and their infrastructure across the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera cameraman third journalist killed by Israel in Gaza in last 24 hours
An Israeli air strike has killed Palestinian photojournalist Ahmed Al-Louh and five Palestinian Civil Defence workers in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp as Tel Aviv announces that it will double illegal settlements in the Golan Heights.
Al-Louh, who worked as a cameraman for Al Jazeera alongside other media outlets, was killed yesterday in the strike on the Civil Defence post in the central Gaza camp, according to medics and local journalists.
The attack occurred as Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 Palestinians on Sunday, medics said. Allouh is the third journalist killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours.
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Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to increase the number of settlers in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, days after seizing more Syrian territory following the ousting of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, reports Al Jazeera.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the government had “unanimously approved” the “demographic development” of the occupied territory, which would seek to double the Israeli population there.
This new settlement plan is only for the portion of the Golan Heights that Israel has occupied since 1967. In 1981, Israel’s parliamentary Knesset moved to impose Israeli law over the territory, in an effective annexation.
Al Jazeera Arabic reports that journalist Al-louh was working while he was killed, wearing a “press” vest and helmet. He was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza’s city of Deir el-Balah.
Al Jazeera condemns ‘heinous crime’
Al Jazeera Media Network condemned Al-Louh’s killing, and called on human rights and media organisations “to condemn the Israeli Occupation’s systematic killing of journalists in cold blood, the evasion of responsibilities under international humanitarian law, and to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice”.
Israeli strike kills Al Jazeera journalist. Video: CNN News
“We urge relevant international legal institutions to take practical and urgent measures to hold the Israeli authorities and all those who are responsible accountable for their heinous crimes and to adopt mechanisms to put an end to the targeting and killing of journalists,” the network added.
Al-Louh had been covering Israel’s war on Gaza when it first began in October 2023, embedded with the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian Civil Defence teams, Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary said.
Gaza’s media office said the head of the civil emergency service in Nuseirat, Nedal Abu Hjayyer, was also killed in Sunday’s attack.
“The civil emergency headquarters in Nuseirat camp was hit during the crews’ presence. They work around the clock to serve the people,” said Zaki Emadeldeen from the civil emergency service to reporters at the hospital.
“The civil emergency service is a humanitarian service and not political. They work in war and peace times for the service of the people,” he said, adding that the place was hit directly by an Israeli air strike.
The Israeli military said they were looking into the attack.
Journalists ‘paying highest price’
“Since the war in Gaza started, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives – for their reporting. Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth,” said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) programme director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.
“Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth. Those responsible for these casualties face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
Several other Palestinian journalists were killed this past week, with 195 killed in Gaza since Israel’s war began, Khoudary said.
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said earlier on Sunday that Palestinian journalist Mohammed Jabr al-Qrinawi was killed along with his wife and children in an Israeli air attack that targeted their home in Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, late on Saturday.
Earlier on Saturday, Al Mashhad Media said its journalist Mohammed Balousha was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza.
Several AJ journalists killed
Several Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, including Ismail al-Ghoul, Rami al-Rifi, Samer Abudaqa and Hamza Dahdouh.
Also on Sunday, an air strike hit people protecting aid trucks west of Gaza City. Medics said several were killed or wounded but exact figures were not yet available.
Residents also said at least 11 people were killed in three separate Israeli air strikes in Gaza City. Nine were killed in the towns of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabalia camp when clusters of houses were bombed or set ablaze, and two were killed by drone fire in Rafah.
Earlier on Sunday, at least 15 Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces stormed Khalil Oweida School in Beit Hanoon, sources told Al Jazeera.
Several other Israeli attacks earlier on Sunday killed Palestinians near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza; and in Shujayea, in Khan Younis.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 44,976 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.
Pacific Media Watch, Al Jazeera and news agencies.
There are no resources or capabilities in Gaza, particularly for cancer patients, heart surgeries, and dialysis treatments. Since the closure of Rafah crossing, only 360 patients have been allowed through the Karam Abou Salem crossing, which is a negligible number given the massive need.
The ongoing war in Gaza has spared no one from suffering, leaving stories of pain, loss, and the collapse of basic living conditions. Thousands of injured and ill individuals are left languishing on waiting lists, their only hope being timely medical treatment to prevent complications that could lead to death, permanent disabilities, or incurable diseases. The dire situation is exacerbated by the collapse of the healthcare system and the closure of border crossings.
Treatment on Hold
Saleh Hamad, 39, from Al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City, was injured by shrapnel from an airstrike while staying in his tent in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. He was rushed to a hospital for treatment.
Doctors discovered that Hamad required multiple surgeries to his legs and abdomen due to extensive shrapnel wounds, which caused severe damage to his bones and tissues, leaving his left leg 12 centimeters shorter than his right. However, no surgeries could be performed due to a lack of resources. The wounds in his abdomen began to fester with infection and pus, requiring continuous cleaning and care in unsanitary, unhygienic conditions.
His brother Ahmed says: “Since my brother’s injury, we’ve been trying to secure a medical transfer abroad, but to no avail. It’s been over three months, and Israel’s complicated procedures have made this impossible. We’re losing hope for his recovery, but we’re doing everything we can to provide him with basic care.”
Similarly, three-month-old Yousef Diab, born with a congenital lung defect, urgently requires surgery unavailable in Gaza. His father Taysir explains: “My son was born with a hole in his lungs and needs immediate medical intervention abroad. We’ve been waiting for Israeli approval, but his health is deteriorating, and I fear losing him—he’s my first child.”
Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, head of medical transfers in Gaza, tells Daraj that injured and sick patients are at risk of death daily as they await approval to leave for treatment abroad. There are no resources or capabilities in Gaza, particularly for cancer patients, heart surgeries, and dialysis treatments. Since the closure of Rafah crossing, only 360 patients have been allowed through the Karam Abou Salem crossing, which is a negligible number given the massive need. Most cases approved are pediatric cancer patients and injured children.
The Crisis in Pediatric Care
Dr. Hani Al-Fleet, head of the pediatric department at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, describes the grim situation: “In our department, we have children requiring advanced treatment that was unavailable in Gaza even before this war.” He said that children face the biggest challenges in these situations, especially those born with congenital heart defects, for example: they used to be referred to hospitals in the West Bank due to a lack of specialists in the Strip. Now, due to the collapse of the health system, the remaining doctors work with what they have, but it’s not enough.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, under Articles 16-19, mandates full protection for patients, their safety, and safe medical transport. Hospitals must be treated as protected zones, immune to attacks or disruptions, as well as ambulances transporting patients and injured folk.
Numbers and Realities
According to statistics obtained by Daraj from the Palestinian Ministry of Health:105,000 injuries have been recorded since the war began, including 15,000 critical cases requiring long-term rehabilitation. Before the closure of Rafah, 2,023 injured individuals were able to travel for treatment; after the closure, only 182 have managed to leave—most of them children.
The statistics also indicate that the number of diabetes patients has reached 71,000, with a prevalence rate of 3.2 per 100 people, while hypertension patients number 105,000, with a prevalence rate of 4.8 per 100 people. Before the closure of the crossing, 6,075 patients were able to travel for treatment, compared to only 250 patients after its closure. Ministry data further reveals that a total of 25,000 requests have been submitted for treatment abroad, with 7,707 approved referrals—all of whom remain on the waiting list.
The World Health Organization (WHO), in its report “Estimating Rehabilitation Needs in Gaza Using Injury Data from Emergency Medical Teams”, states that severe injuries requiring ongoing rehabilitation are likely to constitute 25% of the total number of injuries, or at least 22,500 people. The primary need for rehabilitation arises from severe limb injuries, with an estimated range between 13,455 to 17,550 cases.
Rick Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in Gaza, stated in a press release that the surging demand for rehabilitation services is occurring while the healthcare system continues to be systematically destroyed.
Rights Taken Away by Force
Jamil Sarhan, director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Gaza, asserts that Israeli actions are “a deliberate colonial plan aimed at extermination.” He adds: “Since taking control of Rafah crossing, thousands of injured individuals with medical referrals have been denied exit, leading to preventable deaths. This is a blatant violation of human rights.”
Sarhan noted that the Independent Commission for Human Rights has documented several names listed for medical referrals who have now been added to the records of the deceased due to being denied travel for treatment—a blatant violation of human rights.
Sarhan emphasized that all measures taken by the Israeli military against civilians constitute violations of international laws and humanitarian principles. These laws ensure that wounded civilians in conflict zones have the right to receive adequate treatment without obstruction. He added: “The Israeli army is deliberately destroying the health system, bombing hospitals, storming medical facilities, and blocking the entry of medicine and supplies. Ambulance vehicles have also been targeted, all of which underscores the occupier’s intent to annihilate the population and leave generations burdened with chronic illnesses and amputated limbs.”
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called on the international community to exert effective pressure on Israel to ensure the reopening of crossings and allow thousands of injured and sick individuals in Gaza to travel for treatment. This urgent action is necessary to save their lives, as many face certain death due to systematic attacks on the healthcare sector and the blockade, which has rendered most of Gaza’s health infrastructure inoperable.
Meanwhile, the International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (HICHR) warned of rising fatality rates among patients and the wounded as a result of the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare sector. The commission urged for: The provision of urgent medical treatment for patients and injured individuals. The entry of fuel needed to operate hospitals.
The commission underscored that the Israeli government is ignoring rulings by the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions, and resolutions by the UN Security Council and General Assembly, all of which demand an end to the genocide.
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