“Lost Innocence: Remembering the Tragic Day of Muhammad Al-Dura”

Palyouth On that morning, Jamal Al-Dura left his home in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip with his son, Muhammad, to attend a car auction, hoping to purchase one. Little did he know that he would find himself trapped under the gunfire of Israeli occupation soldiers on Salah al-Din Street.

Twenty-two years ago, on September 30, 2000, the third day of the Second Intifada, known as the “Al-Aqsa Intifada,” the world witnessed the live broadcast of the death of the 12-year-old child, Muhammad Jamal Al-Dura.

At that moment, one of the onlookers cried out, “The boy is dead from a bullet.” Those words continue to resonate, an ongoing event even though names, places, and details may differ.

No one saw Muhammad Al-Dura that day without being haunted by those moments of pain and anger, spanning all those years between the event and today.

On Salah al-Din Street, near the Israeli settlement of “Netzarim” south of Gaza City, Jamal Al-Dura and his son Muhammad sought refuge behind a cement “barrel” barrier as Israeli occupation soldiers fired numerous rounds towards them, despite the clear fact that they were unarmed civilians.

“I tried to shield Muhammad from the bullets with my body. I even raised my hands to catch the bullets that hit his knee; it was his first gunshot wound, but he remained resilient. Then, I found his head on my right leg, and there was a large hole in his back after he was shot in the abdomen, pierced by multiple bullets,” Jamal Al-Dura recounted.

Muhammad Al-Dura was born on November 22, 1988. He attended school until the fifth grade and lived with a simple refugee family in the city of Ramla. His father worked as a carpenter, and his mother was a homemaker. After his martyrdom, the family was blessed with another child, named Muhammad in honor of his late brother.

Since the year 2000, more than 2,230 children have been martyred, with the most recent being 7-year-old Ryan Suleiman, who tragically lost his life on Thursday, September 29, after falling from a height and his heart stopped while being pursued by Israeli occupation forces in the town of Taqu’ in southeastern Bethlehem.

K. F