Israeli apartment hit during previous fighting with Gaza. Illustrative. Photo Courtesy of ZAKA.
A sobbing voice was sent to the head of the United Nations recently, the voice of the parents of four-and-a-half-year-old Daniel Tregerman—who was killed by a Hamas mortar in the recent Gaza-Israel war. The parents asked for one thing: that the UN investigate Hamas for committing war crimes, including the murder of their small son.
The letter sent to UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and released by the Israeli Government Press Office, asks how a UN committee could be formed to investigate Israel—which sought to avoid civilian casualties—and not Hamas. Wrote the Tregermans, “The investigation Committee will examine the ‘crimes of Israel’ during the fighting. The investigation Committee is not asked to investigate how terrorists shoot out of UN buildings and schools.”
The letter spells out Hamas’ crimes: from shooting at civilians to forcing their own people into “slave-like” conditions to dig the terror tunnels from Gaza to Israel, including the murder of said diggers to keep them from leaking the tunnel information to Israel.
“Why are you silent?” asks the letter. “Does your silence indicate consent with the abuse of the Palestinian people and the Israeli people? The answers to these questions will remain unknown.”
Most of the letter paints a tragic story of their family at home during a Hamas attack on one of the Israeli communities near Gaza. The Tregerman parents said their little boy was playing inside their house with his little sister Yoval when the mortar hit.
“He was killed from a mortar shell that was shot by terrorists from Gaza, he died in our hands. Daniel died in front of his little sister and his best friend Yoval, 3.5 years old; he died in front of Uri, only four months old and right before our eyes, his mother and father.”
The letter described the devastated family fleeing the scene, having to leave Daniel’s body behind, as additional attacks came. “Yoval, Daniel’s sister saw the terrifying sight and understood that something terrible happened. It is unbearable to watch that little child staring at the wall, in overwhelming silence with teardrops from her eyes.”
The parents made it clear this was an intentional attack from Gaza.
“Daniel was killed from a mortar shell that was fired by Hamas members from an elementary school for boys in Gaza City. It wasn’t a stray shell. It wasn’t accidental death. From that school terrorists fired deliberately to the kibbutz to murder civilians—children, women, old people. This time they also achieved the goal.”
Despite their tragedy, the parents hope for peace with Gaza, believing that most people on earth want peace and not the violence of radical Islam.
The parents actually dismissed a desire for vengeance against Hamas, but instead pleaded with the UN to speak out against the Gaza group.
“We do not seek the people responsible for our Daniel’s death. We only wish your response and your voice against this crime and the crime Hamas committed against their own people.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, September 4, 2014)