اخبار فلسطين – وطن نيوز
فلسطين اليوم – اخبار فلسطين اليوم
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-03-10 14:40:00
The Palestinian Information Center A new investigation by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor revealed the incidents of the Israeli occupation army targeting a civilian family in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip in February 2024, which included bombing the house, killing family members with sniper fire, obstructing the ambulance of the injured, and the recovery and burial of bodies, in addition to the arbitrary arrest of those who remained alive and the accompanying grave violations, within the context of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. Gaza since October 2023. The Euro-Mediterranean Observatory said in a statement that the investigation it published today, Tuesday, included field investigative work about an air attack carried out by the occupation army on the home of the “Al-Awaini” family with drones at least three times without prior notice or warning, followed by Israeli soldiers sniping family members in the vicinity of the “Nasser” Medical Complex, leaving them to bleed to death, while obstructing their ambulance and recovery. Their bodies and burial. The preparation of the investigation, which lasted for about two years, relied on field research and direct interviews conducted by Euro-Mediterranean Observatory researchers, where the process of collecting information and data was based on the testimonies of family survivors, including parents and siblings, to determine the sequence of events from the moment of bombing until arrest. To verify the information, these testimonies were interrogated with the testimonies of eyewitnesses and medical staff at the Nasser Medical Complex, including the complex’s administration, and a review of the field conditions and medical records during the relevant period. In parallel, the Euro-Mediterranean team used geographic analysis tools, satellite images, and topographical maps to determine the exact location of the house and measure the distances from the hospital (which turned out to not exceed 100 metres), in addition to analyzing “sightlines” from nearby high-rise buildings to verify potential firing angles and compare them to the locations of casualties. The research covered the period extending from the incident in February 2024, and continued until January 2026, in order to include the statements of detainees from the family and document them after their release. In the details of the crime, at approximately 11:00 am on Sunday, February 11, 2024, the Israeli army launched an attack on the “Al-Awaini” family’s home near the “Nasser” Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. A drone bombed the house with at least one missile without any warning, which led to Abdullah Ibrahim Al-Awaini (29 years old) being seriously injured in his abdomen. When his father, Ibrahim Hassan Al-Awaini (56 years old), went up behind him to check on him and check what had happened, he was surprised – on the stairs of the building with the open roof – by a Quadcopter drone filming him from a close distance, before targeting him several times with fragmentation projectiles. He was hit by shrapnel in his head and back until he lost consciousness. As a result, the brothers “Hossam Ibrahim Al-Awaini” (27), “Saad Ibrahim Al-Awaini” (22 years old), “Hassan Ibrahim Al-Awaini” (33 years old), and “Anas Ibrahim Al-Awaini” (18 years old) rushed to help their brother, so they carried him, trying to help him and take him to the “Nasser” Medical Complex near their home. While they were heading to the hospital on foot, they were targeted by Israeli snipers stationed on the roofs of nearby buildings, seriously wounding the two brothers, “Hossam” and “Saad,” and they fell near the wall of the medical complex alongside their brother, “Abdullah,” who had previously been injured as a result of the targeting of the house. According to an eyewitness from the neighbors, “Hossam” and “Saad” tried to crawl after they were injured, but they were exposed to sniper fire again. While the other two brothers: “Hassan” – who works as a nurse in Nasser Complex – and “Anas” (the youngest) survived, no one from the family or the remaining residents in the area were able to approach to rescue the wounded; Fearing that they would meet the same fate, given that snipers continued to target every moving object in the vicinity of the hospital. The heavy fire also prevented them from being able to provide assistance or transport their father, even though he was also injured as a result of the bombing that affected the house. In the midst of these events, the mother, Tahani Ghazi Mustafa Hamdan (55 years old), went out with her injured husband, Ibrahim, and tried to reach the hospital. She was surprised by her children lying on the ground, covered in their blood as a result of sniper bullets. Despite her surviving son, Hassan, pleading with her to return home to save her life, she could not leave them without relief. The son returned with his father, “Ibrahim,” and she took detours to avoid the fire until she reached the gate of the “Nasser” Medical Complex. There, she was targeted by a sniper bullet that hit her leg, but her injury did not prevent her from continuing on her way to the emergency department to seek help. However, the Israeli army’s strict siege of the hospital, and its targeting of every moving object in its vicinity, prevented medical teams from responding. They were unable to go out to rescue the three brothers, or even to recover their bodies after they were killed. According to an eyewitness’s testimony to the Euro-Med team, bullets were fired again at the injured while they were trying to crawl, which demonstrates the actual impossibility of evacuation in light of the intensity of targeting in the vicinity of the complex. After receiving treatment, the mother was unable to leave the hospital; She was forced to stay there based on the recommendation of the medical staff, for fear that she would be targeted if she tried to leave, and would suffer the same fate as her children. The mother remained inside the complex for four days, until, on February 14, 2024, the Israeli army forced everyone inside to forcibly evacuate towards the south, in preparation for storming the complex. During that period, the bodies of the three brothers were left lying in the street in front of the hospital wall, without anyone being able to reach them to bury them or even approach them. The mother had no choice but to watch the bodies of her children daily through a hole in the wall, unable to do anything, until the Israeli army invaded the area and obliterated its features with destruction and bulldozing. After the Israeli forces withdrew from the area, a horrific scene unfolded in front of the ambulance crews and families. Force majeure circumstances and severe restrictions prevented the ability to recover the piled-up bodies, determine the identities of their owners, or bury them in dignity. Under the weight of this reality, the body of one of the brothers from the “Al-Awaini” family was hastily buried in a mass grave in the “Al-Namsawi” neighborhood before his family had the opportunity to say goodbye to him, which later forced the father to exhume the burial site himself to verify his son’s identity, while the fate of the bodies of the other two brothers remained unknown after the landmarks of the area were obliterated. The violations that targeted this family were not limited to killing the three brothers and leaving their bodies unrecovered, but rather extended to targeting the remaining members through arrest and torture within the Israeli detention system. On February 13, 2024, one day before the displaced were forced to evacuate the hospital, Israeli forces stormed the family home in the vicinity of the complex, and arrested the wounded father, “Ibrahim,” from inside the house, along with his two sons, “Hassan” and “Anas.” Eight days later, the army released “Anas,” while “Ibrahim” was released 36 days after his arrest, while “Hassan” was kept in detention until he was released as part of a prisoner and detainee exchange deal that was implemented after the ceasefire entered into force on October 10, 2025. During their periods of detention, and according to family statements, “Ibrahim,” “Hassan,” and “Anas” were subjected to torture and inhuman treatment, including Violent physical attacks, starvation, sleep deprivation, isolation, and denial of contact with the outside world. According to the family’s testimonies, the father, “Ibrahim,” was subjected to torture that led to a broken leg, which is an extremely dangerous indicator of the level of violence practiced inside places of detention and the serious physical harm he caused. “Hassan” spent about 20 months in Israeli prisons and military detention centers without being charged or brought to trial, in a context of arbitrary detention that lacks basic guarantees for a fair trial. All the detained family members were later released without any charges being brought or being brought to trial, which denies the existence of reasonable suspicion justifying their arrest, and confirms that targeting their home and persecuting them in the first place was not based on legal justification or specific military necessity. The results of the investigation showed that the targeted house was a purely civilian facility, completely devoid of any military manifestations or legitimate targets that could justify targeting under “military necessity” stipulated in Articles (51) and (52) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977). Accordingly, there is no apparent basis that would justify targeting them with murder or arrest, or bombing their home without any prior warning or precautionary measures. In light of this, the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory concluded that what happened falls within a broader pattern followed by the Israeli forces when they invade or extend their control over specific areas, which is based on effectively turning them into “killing zones,” whereby everyone present inside them is treated as a supposed target, and is faced with death, injury, or arrest. The investigation concluded that the crime of targeting the “Al-Awaini” family, when read in its direct context within the siege of the “Nasser” Medical Complex, and after reviewing the material facts, constitutes an extensive applied model of the material and moral elements that make up the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip. This incident contains conclusive indications of the presence of patterns of behavior prohibited under Article II of the Genocide Convention, starting with the intentional killing of members of a protected group, through inflicting serious physical and psychological harm on them, to deliberately subjecting them to living conditions intended for their actual destruction. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to adopt the Al-Awaini family file as a “revealing model case.” This file brings together all the material elements that make up the crime of genocide, starting with premeditated killing, widespread and systematic aerial targeting of civilian objects, including medical ones, killing and targeting of civilians, all the way to siege, starvation, torture, and preventing proper burial. The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor also called on the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry and the Special Rapporteur on Torture to intensify documentation and verification of the pattern of grave violations to which Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially detainees from the Gaza Strip, are exposed, inside Israeli prisons and detention centers. Euro-Med called for effective pressure to enable independent international forensic teams to urgently enter the Gaza Strip and access all burial sites, including mass graves and forced burial sites, to conduct a comprehensive professional investigation that includes documenting the circumstances of the burial, exhuming remains when necessary, determining the identities of the victims and causes of death as much as possible, and ensuring a legal chain of custody of evidence, in a way that guarantees the rights of families and prevents the obliteration of crime traces or tampering with evidence. Euro-Med also called on the international community to impose comprehensive and immediate sanctions on Israel, including a complete ban on the export of weapons, ammunition and surveillance technologies, specifically drones (of the Quadcopter and Hermes types) and precision sniper rifles, which were proven to be used systematically in the liquidation of the “Al-Awaini” family and civilians in the Gaza Strip. Euro-Med called for the imposition of targeted individual sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, against Israeli military and political leaders involved in issuing orders and carrying out crimes against Palestinians, and a boycott of commercial and technological companies proven to be involved in providing the Israeli army with the tools used to commit these crimes, emphasizing that military and economic support in light of these atrocities is a form of criminal association that requires accountability. The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor urged all states parties to the Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide to formally intervene and join the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice, as this would be a practical activation of states’ commitment to the duty to prevent genocide, and an effective tool to protect the international legal system from erosion. The widening circle of international intervention also contributes fundamentally to directing the court’s judicial interpretation towards conditioning actions, such as sieges and targeting hospitals, as crimes of genocide, and refutes the narratives that attempt to justify these atrocities under the pretext of “self-defense.” The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor also urged states party to the Geneva Conventions to activate their obligations to use universal jurisdiction in their national courts to prosecute those involved in these violations, especially those with dual nationalities. Finally, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called for the adoption of comprehensive and binding international mechanisms to ensure reparation for victims of crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, as an inherent and inalienable right, which includes the right to truth and knowledge, recognition of violations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, as well as the right of victims to effective redress, medical, psychological and social rehabilitation, and fair compensation for material and moral losses, including the loss of loved ones, the destruction of homes and livelihoods, and injuries. disabilities, and prolonged psychological harm, with special attention to children, women, people with disabilities, and survivors of torture and sexual violence.
