Khan Younes, Gaza – “Amal” in Arabic means hope, the kind of name given to a new neighborhood to encourage people to settle there and dream of their families growing up there.
But last week, the Barbakh family’s faint hopes of making it out of Al-Amal alive were quickly dashed when Israeli sniper fire claimed the lives of two of their sons.
The two boys were waving a white flag.
Order to evacuate
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Sanad verification agency investigated the crime in which Nahedh, 13, and Ramez Barbakh, 20, were shot dead by snipers.
On the morning of Wednesday, January 24, the Barbakhs were preparing to leave al-Amal, west of Khan Younis, and move further south as they had been ordered by the leaflets that had fallen on their neighborhood since the day before and the advertisement. by Avichay Adraee, the Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israeli army.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Islam, the boys’ mother, told Tel Aviv Tribune. “At first we weren’t even sure about these evacuation orders because we hadn’t seen them ourselves. We were trying to keep a low profile in our house and keep everyone safe.
“But eventually we realized we had to go for it and started trying to come up with a plan. My husband and sons thought maybe we could break the back wall and get out that way because we could hear the gunfire outside.
But ultimately, the couple decided that the best path would be the most direct: they would exit their house with a white flag and head toward al-Mawasi as directed.
#عاجل 🔴🔴 الى سكان منطقة خان يونس في أحياء النصر، مركز المدينة والمخيم (ا) (107-112) قة الإنسانية في المواصي عن طريق شارع البحر pic.twitter.com/K4MtDeKMSR
– افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) January 24, 2024
Translation: #URGENT to residents of Khan Younis in the al-Nasser, al-Amal, city center and camp neighborhoods, in blocks 107-112: For your own safety, you should move to the area immediately humanitarian aid from al-Mawasi by the coastal road.
“I called Nahedh,” says Mohamed-Adel, their father. “I gave him a white cloth to wave over his head as a white flag. I thought there was no way anyone would want to hurt a child or be afraid of a child.
As the rest of the family gathered the last of their belongings they thought they could take with them, Nahedh took a few cautious steps out of the front door, waving his white flag above his head and heading cautiously around the corner. so she can look at the main road to see which way her family should go.
“They stay there all day”
According to what the family told Tel Aviv Tribune, as Nahedh took a few steps out of the door, he was shot in the legs and fell to the ground.
His father called to him from the door of the house, coaxing his little boy to get up a little and try to go back into the house. When Nahedh got up to try to enter the house, he was shot twice more, in the back and in the head.
His brother Ahmed, 18, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the shooting came from the direction of al-Katiba, about 400 meters (1,312 feet), an area where Sanad was able to confirm Israeli military activity on the day in question.
Seeing what had happened to his little brother, Ramez ran out of the house to try to get him out of danger. He was shot in the heart and fell on top of his wounded brother, white flag and all.
Islam was unable to comprehend what had happened to her family, paralyzed with anguish as they looked out the window at their two sons lying on the road.
“I was still hoping that they were still alive, that there was some breath in them,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything other than ‘I want my kids, I want my kids.’
“I don’t know how I stayed inside the house, but all I remember is screaming out the window to everyone I saw across the street, asking them to help me, to do anything.
“They didn’t do anything, they couldn’t. Every time I called someone, my husband and sons would silence me in every way possible. They were there to kill people,” she continued.
The family was unable to approach the bodies of Nahedh and Ramez and ultimately had to flee the neighborhood without knowing what had become of them.
“They were there in the street all day,” Islam said. “When we left, we couldn’t remove their bodies or even stop to check on them. There was constant shooting.
Only one photo survives of this crime. The photo was taken by Ahmed, the boys’ brother, who told Tel Aviv Tribune that he “took a photo of my murdered brothers to never forget them, and to document this crime that was committed, the crime of shooting a child who was carrying a white gun.” flag then shooting his brother who rushes to save him.”
What the investigation revealed
Sanad’s investigation identified the exact location where Ramez and Nahedh were targeted by Israeli snipers, near the Harun ar-Rashid school in al-Amal, also known as the “block 109” on the map of Gaza published by the Israeli army.
According to reports, the boys were shot around 10:30 a.m. on January 24 and Ahmed managed to take a photo of their bodies between 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., based on the shadows in the photo.
In the photo of the murdered brothers, bloodstains are visible on the white flag that Nahedh carried.
The family was never able to evacuate all together. Instead, they cried for their children while breaking the wall of their house to cross other streets and houses, running from one sheltered spot to another until reaching the coastal road at Khan Younis.
To this day, they know nothing about the bodies of Nahedh and Ramez.