Frustrated victims who fear that her decision will not change reality
Gaza craves justice through the International Criminal Court
Large crowds funeral the bodies of the four children from the Bakr family who were killed in an Israeli attack on them while they were playing soccer on the Gaza beach.
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Muhammad Abu Jazar shows his daughter (Maysam) pictures of his children who were killed in the 2014 war on Gaza.
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Hadi Bakr, the father of one of the four children who was killed on the beach in Gaza while playing football in 2014. AFP
Sayed Bakr, one of those injured in the attack on the children of the Bakr family on the Gaza beach in 2014. AFP
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Nevin Barakat lost her husband, and three of her five children were injured as a result of shrapnel from Israeli shells, targeting a school belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was sheltering dozens of displaced families during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014.
The decision of the International Criminal Court, Friday, to judge that its jurisdiction includes the occupied Palestinian territories, revived the family's hopes for an investigation into this bombing.
The sound of the shells and the explosions that rocked the school in the northern Gaza Strip, on the night of July 30, are still echoing in the memory of Nevin (34 years old), who recounts "I counted seven shells before I lost consciousness."
She explains how she woke up to the screams of her eldest son, to inform her of his father's martyrdom by the shrapnel of another shell that fell in the schoolyard, to which dozens of families resorted to shelter under the banner of the United Nations, after the Israeli bombing destroyed their homes or forced them to leave.
Nevin suffered a fracture in the back and paralyzed the lower limbs, while three of her children, aged five, 10 and 11, sustained varying wounds.
Nevin did not succeed in holding back her tears, saying, "I felt happy and hopeful with the decision of the International Criminal Court, and that the world began to feel us, and the need to stop the Israeli injustice."
The recent Gaza war, which, according to Israel, aimed to stop rocket fire from Gaza towards Israeli territory, lasted 50 days, and caused great destruction in the besieged Palestinian sector, and left 2251 martyrs on the Palestinian side, most of them civilians, while 74 people were killed on the Israeli side. Most of them are soldiers.
Samar Barakat (18 years), Nevin's daughter, who was also wounded that day by shrapnel in the leg, said, "Whoever kills must be punished, and Israel must be held accountable for its crimes."
"I was trying to escape with my brothers, but the shells were falling in front of and behind us," she added.
"I asked the doctor to allow me to say goodbye to my father, while I saw the paramedics carrying him, but he refused to allow me to do so, because his body was in pieces."
Nothing brings back our loss
In a document published on April 27, 2015, the UN Security Council blamed the Israeli army for seven strikes on UN schools in Gaza that were using shelters for residents.
These raids killed 44 people.
According to the document, the Israeli army bombed two schools belonging to the United Nations in northern Gaza on 24 and 30 July, and carried out a missile strike targeting another UN school in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on the third of August.
"These buildings (...) are supposed to be safe places, especially during a period of armed conflict," the document states, considering at the same time that it is "unacceptable" for armed groups to use "UNRWA" schools to store weapons.
The Israeli army has always stressed that it has done its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, accusing Hamas and other armed factions of using civilians as "human shields" by carrying out their military operations from populated areas.
When the International Criminal Court announced on February 5 that its powers include the Palestinian territories, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that his country has the right to "defend itself in the face of terrorists."
On a seashore west of Gaza City, Montaser Bakr (17 years) tells how he escaped death when Israeli missiles fell, seven years ago, near him and his cousins.
"I will tell them in the international court that we were playing football when Israel killed my cousin Ismail (nine years old), while he was on his way to get the ball," he says.
Montaser, who was 11 years old at the time, was wounded, and his brother Zakaria (nine years old), his nephew Ahed (10 years old), as well as two of his cousins (10 and 11 years old) were killed in Israeli shelling while they were playing on the Gaza beach. .
This caused a shock to public opinion inside and outside Gaza, after the pictures that foreign media correspondents reported directly from their residence in hotels overlooking the beach.
Sayed Bakr (19 years), the cousin of Montaser, who escaped with him from the bombing, said, "Nothing will return our loss, but the right of those who were martyred must not be lost."
I have been waiting for 7 years
His mother, Salwa Bakr (46 years), says: "I have been waiting for this moment for seven years, and the occupation leaders can be tried for their crimes against us."
The mother, who lost one of her sons in the war, cries, and continues while covering her face with her hands: "Those who survived the bombing at that day no longer have a desire for life, and they suffer psychological disorders."
Muhammad Abu Jazar (34 years old) had his legs amputated as a result of the Israeli bombing of his house in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, during the 2014 war, while his wife, who was 25 at the time, and two of his sons (a year and a half and three years) were martyred.
"We were asleep," he told AFP.
The shelling began indiscriminately throughout the neighborhood. Seven homes were completely destroyed.
In a series of reports published between November 2014 and May 2015, the London-based Amnesty International said that it had documented eight Israeli strikes on homes in Gaza "without warning", killing at least 104 civilians.
Abu Jazar shows a picture on his phone of his two children, who are placed in a refrigerator designated for cooling ice cream, which the paramedics used at the time, after the refrigerators of the dead in hospitals were full.
"I am disappointed, and I am not sure if the decision of the International Criminal Court will lead to anything on the ground," he says.
• Nevin suffered a fracture in the back and paralysis in the lower limbs, while 3 of her children, aged five, 10 and 11, sustained varying wounds. Nevin did not succeed in holding back her tears, and she says, “I felt happy and hopeful with the (International Criminal) decision, and that the world "He started to feel us, and the need to stop the Israeli injustice."
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