{"id":263931,"date":"2024-06-10T12:02:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T11:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=263931"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:49:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T07:49:13","slug":"baby-ahmad-was-beheaded-by-israel-with-a-us-bomb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/06\/baby-ahmad-was-beheaded-by-israel-with-a-us-bomb\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Ahmad Was Beheaded by Israel with a US Bomb"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced Palestinians in Rafah on 27 May 2024, which killed at least 48 and wounded hundreds more.\u00a0 (Photo: Eyad Baba\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

On Sunday night, May 26 2024, 1-year-old Ahmad became the symbol of the unspeakable horror of genocide in Gaza after Israel bombed his family tent in north Rafah.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

6 Jun 2024<\/em> – Ahmad Al-Najjar was a happy one-year old child from Gaza<\/a>. He loved trampolines, balls, and cats. Born as the youngest of his four siblings, his father liked to call him \u201cbobba\u201d or \u201cbaby.\u201d<\/p>\n

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On Sunday night, May 26, Ahmad became the symbol of the unspeakable horror of genocide in Gaza after Israel<\/a> bombed his family tent in north Rafah, killing him along with his mother, Faten, his sister, Houda, and his brother, Arkan. Though he was bombed beyond recognition, Ahmad was the most recognizable victim of the tents massacre<\/u><\/a> in Rafah, which burned alive, beheaded, and killed at least 45 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and wounded hundreds others.<\/p>\n

Rafah\u2019s tents massacre was one of the most heinous assaults on Palestinian civilians in recent memory. International media<\/u><\/a> and Palestinian sources<\/u><\/a> reported that Israel blitzed the camp where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents with seven massive U.S. bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each. Meanwhile, weapons experts told<\/u><\/a>CNN<\/em> and The New York Times<\/em> that they identified the remains of Boeing-made GBU-39s in the rubble.<\/p>\n

The bombarded refugee tents had been designated by Israel as a \u201csafe area\u201d for civilians. Rafah was described by UNICEF officials as \u201ca city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza.\u201d It was believed to be Gaza\u2019s last refuge, and the limit of the Biden administration\u2019s \u201cred line\u201d in Gaza. This grim reality, however, did not prevent the Biden administration from shipping thousands of bombs and weapons to Israel, despite Israel\u2019s repeated threats to invade Rafah. As Israeli forces were pounding Rafah\u2019s refugee camps, U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley was in Israel signing \u201cfinish them\u201d on the very U.S. bombs that were used to slaughter children in Gaza.<\/p>\n

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It is the children of Gaza who are forced to live the most unspeakable horrors while being denied the same outrage that Israel\u2019s invented horrors have generated among U.S. and Western politicians<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Widely circulated footage from the massacre showed a night of unspeakable horror: bodies burned to ashes, charred and blackened beyond recognition; beheaded<\/u><\/a> children, decapitated and ripped apart by U.S. bombs; parents clutching their dead and burned children, screaming in horror; rescuers pulling people\u2019s charred remains from the burning tents; wounded victims transferred to the hospital with horrific and gruesome injuries.<\/p>\n

But the most horrifying footage from that night showed<\/u><\/a> a man holding up what appeared to be the body of a small child who had been beheaded. It belonged to Baby Ahmad, who was wearing black pants and an orange shirt that night. His left leg was also severed in the blast. The family never found Ahmad\u2019s head, and they buried him without it. He was put in the same body bag with his sister Houda. His mother and brother Arkan were buried in separate body bags.<\/p>\n

His surviving brothers, Muhammad and Yamin, both saw the ravaged body of their little brother that night. In an interview<\/u><\/a> with Al Jazeera<\/em>, Ahmad\u2019s father, Abdel Hafez, and two brothers, the only survivors of the family, speak up about the unspeakable horror they had to endure that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not believed he was beheaded in the bombing until I saw it with my own eyes at the Tal As-Sultan clinic,\u201d says Abdel Hafez. \u201cHis head was separated from his body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was horrific, very horrific, seeing a beheaded baby, my<\/em> baby. He was buried without a head,\u201d says the father. \u201cI have been in a state of utter collapse, until this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brothers look visibly traumatized. They can hardly invoke the sight of their little brother without trembling and bursting into tears. The family was staying at one of UNRWA\u2019s shelters when Israeli forces pounded the camp. They had been displaced several times before they finally reached Rafah, where they settled in the Tal As-Sultan neighborhood after being forced to flee Khan Younis.<\/p>\n

Battling his tears, brother Mohammad, aged 13, relates: \u201cWe were playing ball, before sunset. I came back to the shelters. They (Israelis) bombed the shelters, and I heard screams. Then I saw my brother Ahmad at the shelter\u2019s door. His head was severed. His left leg was severed. He was wearing black pants and an orange shirt. I could not bear it, seeing my brother beheaded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking through tears, Ahmad\u2019s other brother, Yamin, aged eight, relates his first sight of Ahmad following the Israeli airstrike: \u201cHis face was soaked in blood, and his head severed. I wept. I love them so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing by the graves of his family, and sharing photos of his slain children in their better and happier days, Ahmad\u2019s father shares his fondest and last memory of his son: his nicknames, \u201cbobba\u201d and \u201cbaby,\u201d and his baby word for \u201cgive me potato,\u201d which is \u201cbaba tata,\u201d and the way he pronounced shekel, the Israeli currency. \u201cThe last thing he asked for was a shekel, using his baby word for it: \u2018tetel<\/em>.\u2019 I gave him the shekel, and he hugged me, and then left to buy something with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loved playing with cats,\u201d Muhammad recalls, bursting into bitter tears. \u201cWhen I see his things, the trampoline and ball, and the things he played with, I feel sad and I miss him. I miss them all. I pray for them. I pray that God will have mercy on them, and grant them Heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmad was one of 15,000 Gazan children murdered by Israel since October 7, a toll that would have been unimaginable without the bottomless supply of U.S. bombs. A new report<\/u><\/a> by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor shows that Israel dropped over 70,000 tons of U.S. bombs on Gaza in 200 days, which surpasses that of WWII and the bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined. It\u2019s also 20 times more than the U.S. dropped on Iraq in six years of war.<\/p>\n

Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza by inventing its most outrageous lie, that Hamas fighters beheaded 40 Israeli babies on October 7. Despite being widely debunked, the lie has been repeatedly invoked by Israeli leaders to justify their genocide in Gaza. It has also served as a way to justify U.S. complicity in Israel\u2019s war crimes in Gaza, with top U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, along with the mainstream media, echoing it recklessly.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it is the children of Gaza who are forced to live the most unspeakable horrors while being denied the same outrage that Israel\u2019s invented horrors have generated among U.S. and Western politicians. To cite Ahmad\u2019s father: \u201cThey accuse us of beheading babies. But whose head was decapitated? My son, my one-and-a-half year old baby! They severed it completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Update:<\/strong> This piece has been edited to provide more sourcing and accounts as to the types of U.S.-made bombs that Israel dropped on Rafah on 26 May 2024.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Seraj Assi is a Palestinian writer living in Washington D.C. – Full Bio ><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Go to Original – commondreams.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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