13-year-old Gaza boy dies eight days after Israeli airstrike

1 September 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

After clinging to life for eight days, 13-year-old Haitham Ahmed Marouf succumbed to injuries received in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia and died on the morning of Monday, August 29.

The Palestinian boy had been farming with his father, Ahmed Marouf, on Sunday, August 21. Shortly after 11:00 am, a missile fired by an Israeli drone struck the field next to him.

The explosion shredded the left side of Haitham’s body, filling it with shrapnel from his shoulder to his thigh. His left leg was completely destroyed, while his right femur was broken.

His abdomen was so deeply wounded that his uncle Mohammed Marouf, a staff nurse at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, recalled, “I could have put my hand inside it.”

After he received initial treatment at al-Shifa Hospital, Haitham’s family secured permission from the Israeli government to transfer him to a hospital under its control. He was transported through the Erez Crossing on Wednesday, August 24.

Despite the advanced treatment he received in an Israeli Intensive Care Unit, including the surgical extraction of shrapnel and cleaning of his wounds, Haitham died at 10:00 am on August 29.

When he met with the International Solidarity Movement on Wednesday, August 31, Ahmed Marouf was too shaken by the death of his son to comment.

13-year-old Gaza boy dies eight days after Israeli airstrike