Israeli Strike in Gaza That Launched a Boy Onto a Roof Targeted Official Released in Hostage Deal

Ali Faraj, the seven-year-old boy who survived the attack, lost 15 members of his family, including five sisters

An Israeli airstrike that launched a seven-year-old boy onto the roof of a neighboring building in Gaza City and killed 15 members of his family, including his five sisters, targeted a Gaza Finance Ministry official who was released in a prisoner swap just two months earlier.

A video recorded by Palestinian journalists showed the boy, Ali Faraj, moments after he was blown onto the roof, crying for help. Nearby was his dead father and the pieces of one of his sisters.

The footage spread widely on social media, and Ali recounted his experience to journalists. “I was sitting with my father, my sisters were playing, suddenly our house was bombed,” Ali said.

The Israeli military has refused to comment on the slaughter, but Palestinian sources told Haaretz that Faraj’s father, Faraj Faraj, was likely the target. Faraj was an employee for Gaza’s Finance Ministry and was detained by Israeli forces shortly after the IDF launched its initial ground invasion in Gaza.

Faraj was released in February as part of the hostage deal, only to be killed along with the majority of his family. Since Israel restarted its genocidal war on March 18, it has been waging a campaign against civil officials in Gaza’s Hamas-led government.

Only Ali and his mother, Nuha, survived the Israeli attack. “I was in the kitchen, making pasta for the kids and coffee for my brother,” Nuha said, according to Haaretz.

“I fell. I said my final prayers, thinking I was going to die. Then, I pushed the rubble off me and looked around – no walls and no furniture. I called out, but no one answered. I saw Ali and signaled to him that I was there. He said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Everyone was gone – my brother and his children, my sister and hers, my husband and our kids,” Nuha added.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.