How Israel kills Gaza's Most Vulnerable Populations

Last week, the Israeli army unleashed a combat dog on Muhammed Bhar, a Palestinian man with Down's Syndrome. Muhammed called out “habibi,” or “my dear,” as the dog bit into his arm and chest. Muhammed’s mother pleaded with the army that he was disabled and posed no threat, but to no avail. His family was then forced to stand by as he bled to death in the next room over. How could the Israeli military target a man so obviously innocent and defenseless he could barely utter a word in response?

The murder was shocking, but not surprising. For more than 9 months, all restraints have been removed on Israeli soldiers. The guiding principle since Oct. 7th has been, to quote Israeli President Isaac Herzog, “an entire nation” was responsible. For Israel, disabled adults, newborn infants, young children and the elderly are not just the first to suffer, they are often the first to be targeted by the Israeli military for execution.

This became apparent when, on Oct. 13th, 2023, Israel ordered all 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to flee south, including many thousands of elderly people and hospital patients who could not be moved. The order was an effective death sentence for untold numbers of young, old & disabled people who relied on the life saving support of hospitals, doctors, caretakers and family members. 

That was the first of not dozens or hundreds but thousands of evacuation orders issued since. Every order issued amounts to another effective death sentence for Gaza’s most vulnerable, immobile populations, who are rarely if ever provided enough time to evacuate and rarely if ever offered a safe place to evacuate to.

The Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor reported in Dec. 2023 on the field executions of several people over the age of 60. According to multiple testimonies, soldiers shot and killed elderly people shortly after ordering them to evacuate their homes. In some cases, the executions took place moments after their release from detention.

In other cases, Gaza’s most vulnerable have been targeted on the road in search of refuge. Bashir Hajji, a 79-year-old resident of Gaza City, was “brutally executed while crossing the ‘safe corridor’ when members of the Israeli army deliberately shot him in the head and back.” 

Ibrahim Yaghi witnessed a similar incident on Dec. 11, 2023 when the Israeli military expelled him from his home. “I had been walking south for two hours amidst thousands of others,” Yaghi wrote. “Walking next to me was an elderly man clearly struggling to keep up. He was dehydrating. He stopped to drink some water as he was about to collapse. That meant he was impeding traffic on the road. Next thing I knew his blood was all over my face. He fell to the ground. He was shot dead in cold blood in front of my eyes by Israeli occupation forces.” 

Then there’s the story of Naifa Al-Suda, the 94-year old grandmother murdered by the Israeli military during its second raid of al-Shifa hospital in March 2024. Israeli troops forced Naifa’s entire family to flee to Wadi Gaza, promising them Naifa would be fine, even though she was dependent on her family to survive. 

After the Israeli military withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital and its surroundings, Naifa’s family went back home looking for her. “We went into my sister’s apartment, where we were forced to leave my grandmother,” Mohammad Saad Al-Nawati said. “We discovered a skull, a spine, and other bones on her bed. This was all that remained of my grandmother, whose body burned to ash inside our home.”

Newborn infants are even more vulnerable than the elderly and thus have also been the target of extermination. On Nov. 10, 2023, Israel forcibly expelled the staff of Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in Northern Gaza. Two weeks later, journalists entered the pediatric intensive care unit there and discovered 5 dead babies whose decomposing bodies lay in close proximity to catheters and ventilators. 

The harrowing testimony of the Jewish American doctor, Mark Perlmutter, also speaks to the Israeli military’s practice of targeting the most innocent of all:

“I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the ‘world’s best sniper.’ And they’re dead-center shots.”

For the Israeli military, there are no innocents in Gaza, not 94-year old women, not infants on ventilators and not even men with Down's Syndrome who cannot even speak ill of dogs sent to slaughter them.