Gaza – Special to Safa
“I thought the absence of my husband and my son Jawad was just a break so that my husband could calm down,” says the mother of baby Jawad, who was tortured and whose handover to the International Red Cross was filmed by the occupation army.
Last night, the Israeli army released a video showing it handing over a baby from the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip to the Red Cross. The baby, who appeared to be less than a year and a half old, was wrapped in cellophane.
The family was shocked when the Red Cross contacted them to inform them of the arrest of their son, Osama Abu Nassar, 26, the child’s father, after he was injured, and to request their presence to receive the infant.
Covered shock
His mother told Safa News Agency, “My husband went out with his horse on the last day of Ramadan to relax, because he suffers from psychological issues. I checked on him and it never crossed my mind that it would turn into a tragedy.”
Due to psychological pressure, Nassar was released and found himself near the yellow line, where he and his child fell prey to the soldiers of the Army of Religion stationed in the area to kill and mutilate civilians.
The mother of the infant Jawad says, “We lived through days of terror and searching, until we received a call on the night of Eid. It was from the Red Cross. They told us in brief words, ‘You have a child, come and pick him up from the Maghazi market.'”
She adds, “I went to the market and picked up my child, but he was not the Jawad I knew. Just touching him made him scream, and his body was completely wrapped in cellophane.”
She adds, “I asked the Red Cross delegate, who spoke Arabic with difficulty, why this paper, and she did not give me an answer.”
Upon returning home, the child’s family were surprised to find signs of torture on his body, including a cigarette extinguished by one of the soldiers, thus revealing the reasons for his escape through the cellophane.
The mother says, “They hid their crime with cellophane, and if it was because of the cold, they would have wrapped it in a blanket or a sheet.”
The child’s family reports that doctors confirmed to them that he had been tortured and that there were marks and bruises on his body, proving this.
As for the father who witnessed his child being tortured, he is missing. His family knows nothing about him except that he is injured and receiving treatment, while their fears for his life and health have been increasing ever since, especially given the psychological conditions he was suffering from.
Committee statement
The International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza said in a special statement to Safa News Agency regarding the incident that it “facilitated on March 19 the transfer of the child Jawad in order to reunite him with his mother in the central Gaza Strip, and transported him from the Kissufim crossing via the Committee’s vehicles and returned him.”
ICRC spokesperson Amani al-Naouq added, “As the International Committee of the Red Cross, our priority in such operations is to ensure they are conducted safely and with dignity for the individuals we are reuniting with their loved ones.” She emphasized, “To protect the privacy of the individuals we are relocating, the ICRC cannot share any personal data about them, or any confidential health information, with the media or publicly.”
It is worth noting that the incident involving the child Jawad is unprecedented, given that he was an infant. However, the occupation army has practiced torture and kidnapping against dozens of Gazans during and after the war of extermination it committed in the Gaza Strip.#SolvanSurrenderArmy
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