Gaza: Killed in Cradle

"Come on! Grow up sweat heart," whispered the father Naser tenderly in the ears of Mohammad. "Our baby will grow up, play hide and seek and marry the prettiest of the girls."

"We will always love you and get you he best of clothes and toys," added his wife Eman as they kept looking at the sleeping angel.

With his innocent look and broad smile, Mohammad came to this life after five long years of patience and impotency endured by his parents.

They wanted nothing but a baby who brings joy to a life growing mundane and gives purpose to it under a paralyzing Israeli punishment and a crippling blockade.

Mohammad will not grow up; he will not smile any longer neither will he play hide and seek.

"The bastards killed him," shouted tearful Naser.

Mohammad was killed Wednesday, February 27, in one of the deadly Israeli missile attacks on Gaza.

"I ran like crazy to Mohammad's cradle. He was motionless," the bereaved father recalled the heart-wrenching scene.

Naser rushed his bleeding baby to the hospital in the immediate vicinity but it was too late.

"He was already dead. The Israelis killed this helpless innocent toddler," said Naser with a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

All Targeted

In killing a toddler, Naser says Israel is targeting all Palestinians.

"Why on earth did they kill our joy?" cried Naser.

"Why did they deprive me of the love of my life? Why did they kill him?"

At least 32 Palestinians, a third of whom were children, were killed in two days of unabated Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Four children, aged eight, nine, 11 and 12, were killed Thursday, February 28, in an Israeli raid as they played football in the northern town of Jabaliya.

Another 12-year-old boy died of wounds sustained in a Gaza raid the previous day.

The chief of Israel's internal security service (Shin Bet), Yuval Diskin, drew fire last month after considering children and civilians killed in indiscriminate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past two years as "terrorists."

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