WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The occupying regime has acknowledged that it was responsible for the killing of five Gazan children during the recent onslaught against the besieged enclave, after initially claiming Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement’s rockets killed the minors.
The regime launched a wave of airstrikes on Gaza on August 5 which lasted for three days before an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect.
The death toll from the air attacks has climbed to 49, including 17 children and over a dozen members of Islamic Jihad. Hundreds of others were also injured.
Five children were killed on the last day of the recent hostilities, after an air attack in the al-Faluja Cemetery east of Jabalya.
Immediately after their deaths, citing off-the-record assessments, several Zionist officials claimed that the five were most likely killed by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.
However, according to a Tuesday report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the military confirmed that the Gaza children were killed by a Zionist airstrike.
The five victims were Jamil al-Din Nijm, 3; Jamil Ihab Nijm, 13; Mohammad Nijm, 16; Hamed Nijm, 16; and Nathmi Karsh, 15.
In response to the regime’s onslaught on Gaza, Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets during the flare-up.
A day after the ceasefire, Zionist troops killed three Palestinians and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
According to Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, the regime’s attacks on Palestinians were systematic and deliberate and fall under its strategy of using disproportionate and excessive force against civilians.
The Zionist regime has waged five wars on Palestinians in Gaza since 2008. The regime has been using U.S.-made warplanes and weapons to hit targets in the densely-populated area.
Human rights organizations say that based on the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, it is more than clear that the regime has been committing war crimes during its attacks on Gaza.
According to the Maariv newspaper, the Zionist regime has incurred 300 million shekels (about $92 million) in losses as a result of its recent aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip.
The paper said the Knesset Finance Committee held a meeting on the damages resulting from the recent military aggression in Gaza and concluded that the value of damages to the regime’s properties amounted to about 300 million Israeli shekels.
It added that the damages included 222 cases of direct damage, including 84 in Ashkelon, 66 in Sderot and 72 in other areas surrounding the besieged Gaza Strip.
The damages included 114 damages to buildings and 97 damage to vehicles.