Less than two weeks before his daughter’s wedding, Khalil al-Masri set out with his eldest son to complete what should have been one of the family’s happiest final preparations: paying for and confirming the reservation of the wedding dress she had chosen at a shop in Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood.
With the reservation confirmed, the two stopped at a nearby sweet shop to celebrate, where they met two friends. As they sat together at a table outside the shop, a live bullet pierced Masri’s head, leaving him unconscious as his son and friends watched in horror.
The 43-year-old father of seven was rushed to the al-Shifa Hospital, but he succumbed to his wounds the following day, on 14 June.
“It was a complete shock. He was very happy and laughing with his friends. He ordered a dessert, but the bullet penetrated his head before the order was served,” Masri’s brother, Mahmoud, told Middle East Eye.
“The wedding was turned into a funeral.”
The incident, captured by a surveillance camera at the entrance to the shop, is not an isolated case.
Although the source of the fire remains unidentified, it occurred amid an escalating pattern of Israeli fire targeting Palestinian civilians across different areas of the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.
“The fire came from the east. We assume it was either from an Israeli quadcopter or a military lifter [watch tower],” Mahmoud said.
“There was a quadcopter in the area before he was shot, but there was also a military lifter in the same direction in the yellow zone [about 1.7km away].”
Killing from above
Military lifters resemble watchtowers equipped with machine guns, established by the Israeli army within areas of occupation near the Yellow Line, an area that Israel was expected to hold temporarily in the first stage of the ceasefire but has refused to relinquish.
Israel has not proceeded with the second stage of the deal, which requires its withdrawal, and has now swallowed more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Lifters are used to elevate weaponry and surveillance equipment above ground level, enabling extended visual coverage of vast areas and the capacity to open fire across wide civilian zones.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, these structures have been deployed at 23 different locations within the Yellow Zone in the eastern Gaza Strip.
On the same day Masri was shot, at least five other Palestinians were struck by Israeli fire in another neighbourhood in the heart of Gaza City.
Among them was university student Muhammed Abu Hassira, 19, who was walking along al-Wehda Street when Israeli forces opened fire, according to eyewitnesses.
The witnesses said they could not determine whether the shots came from an armed quadcopter or an Israeli military watchtower.
“Muhammed was on his way home from the gym at around 7pm, he was on al-Wehda Street when the Israeli occupation suddenly opened fire, hitting him and other pedestrians. He and four or five others collapsed to the ground,” Khaled al-Tarshawi, Abu Hassira’s uncle, told MEE.
“He was shot in the abdomen. People rushed to carry him and the other wounded to the hospital. He was transported on the seat of a wheelchair because there were no vehicles. Doctors tried to save him, but by the time he arrived, he had already lost a significant amount of blood.”
Abu Hassira had just completed his second semester at university.
After managing to finish high school amid the genocide, he enrolled in an engineering programme at one of Gaza’s universities.
“He was intelligent, patient, and always devoted to his parents. His mother was devastated when she received the news, but his father was even more heartbroken. Muhammed was his eldest and most beloved son,” his uncle said.
“Muhammed survived the devastating Israeli attacks throughout the two and a half years of the genocide and refused to leave Gaza City. He refused to evacuate to the south and managed to stay alive during the worst periods of the genocide,” he added.
“But he was killed during the ceasefire by a quadcopter or a lifter.”
Safe zones targeted
But lifters and quadcopters are only two of many ways Palestinians face death in Gaza after the October ceasefire agreement.
Israeli tanks and snipers deployed inside the Yellow Zone have repeatedly opened fire on pedestrians and makeshift tents in the so-called safe area, killing and injuring scores of Palestinians over the past eight months.
Just one day after Masri and Abu Hassira were shot, an Israeli bullet penetrated the head of 13-year-old Amir al-Bashiti while he was inside his makeshift tent in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to his parents, the bullet most likely came from an Israeli tank.
“It was around midnight and he was playing with his cousins and friends outside the tent. I called on him to come in and sleep and I wish I didn’t,” Emad al-Bashiti, Amir’s father, told MEE.
“He came in carrying his blanket and told me ‘I want to tell you what happened’. At the time, there were sounds of Israeli tanks moving and some gunfire close to the camp. I told him to sit down and go to sleep because there were shootings. He insisted on telling me the story before he went to sleep.”
Before he finished his story, an Israeli bullet struck Amir’s head and exited from his neck in front of his father, mother and siblings.
“It wasn’t a normal bullet, it was an explosive one. I heard it explode after it penetrated his head,” Bashiti continued.
“He fell on the ground and vomited blood. I held his hand but he was unconscious. By the time I carried him and rushed outside to reach the hospital, he was already dead.”
Amir and his family were displaced from Rafah and sought refuge in the Batn al-Samin area of Khan Younis, a relatively safe zone where tens of thousands of displaced people have taken shelter.
The Israeli targeting of civilians has intensified in recent weeks, with Palestinians increasingly being killed and injured in areas well beyond the Yellow Line, including locations designated as safe under the ceasefire arrangement.
On Friday alone, a Palestinian child was killed and two other Palestinians from the Totah family were wounded when an Israeli quadcopter dropped an explosive on them as they were collecting water east of Gaza City.
One the same day, another Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Since the ceasefire agreement came into effect on 10 October, at least 1,072 Palestinians have been killed and 3,463 others wounded across the Gaza Strip. At least 73,098 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023, with thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
“Whoever calls this a ceasefire is overlooking what is actually happening on the ground. It is not a ceasefire, it is continued fire,” Bashiti said.
Source: MEE
