“Israeli” Officials Admit Strike Killed 5 Gaza Children, After Initially Blaming Islamic Jihad

By Staff, Agencies

“Israeli” military officials have confirmed that the apartheid “Israeli” entity was responsible for the martyrdom of five minors killed on the last day of the recent hostilities with Islamic Jihad this month.

An “Israeli” army inquiry into the massacre, which occurred on August 7 in the Al-Faluja Cemetery east of Jabalya, has concluded that the minors were martyred by an “Israeli” airstrike, several military sources have confirmed.

Immediately after their martyrdom, several senior “Israeli” officers said the five were most likely martyred by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.

After a similar incident in the Jabalya refugee camp the day before that martyred eight civilians, including children, an army inquiry supposed that this was caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. The Palestinians had said the eight were martyred by the “Israeli” entity.

“We didn’t conduct any strikes in that area, not in urban areas and not at that time,” “Israel” Occupation Forces [IOF] Spokesman Ran Kochav said shortly after the massacre. The head of the IOF’s Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Oded Bassuk, similarly said that “based on intelligence assessments, it can be concluded that this was a self-inflicted injury. We could see the rocket hit a Palestinian home.”

However, in the cemetery massacre, despite their off-the-record assessments, senior IOF officers never commented publicly about who was responsible.

The five victims were Jamil al-Din Nijm, 3; Jamil Ihab Nijm, 13; Mohammad Nijm, 16; Hamed Nijm, 16; and Nathmi Karsh, 15. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, three of them had participated in a support program for trauma victims in Gaza.