"The tank was running over them. I started hysterically telling Akram [my husband], 'the tank is approaching us.' I held up my phone as my family member was calling. I answered without putting the phone up to my ear and started screaming, 'The tanks are approaching us, my children have been killed. We are all injured.' I wanted to do something. My mother's instinct kicked in. I wanted to take my daughter, but I could do nothing...I was telling my husband, [may he rest in peace], that the tank was approaching while he was bleeding out from his back. My two children were in the middle. My husband opened up both his arms and placed his body over the children...I got stuck while I attempted to flee, and as I managed to move. At first, I thought that the tank had seen my kids and husband and stopped. As I looked behind me, I saw that the tank was running over them."
As part of its continuing genocidal campaign, Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) have deliberately crushed Palestinians with military tanks in Gaza. The use of tanks to mutilate Palestinians constitutes a blatant outrage on personal dignity and wilful killing– both war crimes– as well as the genocidal act of killing, and is a calculated tactic that falls within a broader effort to further dehumanise the Palestinian people.
Al-Haq has documented the IOF's attack on Raja Hamdouna, a 36-year-old mother of four. On 6 June 2024, around dawn, while seeking refuge in their tents in Rafah after countless displacements, IOF tanks deliberately ran over her, her husband, and her children. Her husband and two of her children were killed. Somehow, Raja managed to escape with severe injuries to her body. One of her children also sustained serious bodily injuries.
Between 7 October 2023 and 27 April 2024, Raja and her family were forcibly displaced a total of thirteen times– pursuant to unlawfully issued evacuation orders designed to erase Palestinians from the Gaza Strip– before relocating to Rafah. Israel's widespread and systematic policy of mass forcible transfer has directly resulted in the forced displacement of around 90 per cent of Gaza's population, with 85 per cent of the territory under active displacement orders or designated as an Israeli-militarised zone.
The willful killing, outrage on personal dignity, and murder of displaced Palestinians with IOF tanks amounts to:
- Genocide under Article 6 of the Rome Statute (killing members of the group with intent to destroy)
- War Crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute (willful killing, outrage upon personal dignity)
- Crimes Against Humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute (murder as part of widespread attack against civilian population)
- Violation of Rule 113 of Customary IHL (ICRC) regarding treatment of the dead
- Violation of Article 34 of Additional Protocol I (1977) protecting remains of deceased persons
The forced displacement of Raja's family 13 times constitutes forcible transfer (a crime against humanity and war crime), which in the context of genocide, amounts to evidence of genocidal intent.