Video: “He Punched Me”: Israeli Soldiers Attack 88-Year-Old Woman in Rafah
Gaza (Quds News Network)- In a chilling account from southern Gaza, 88-year-old Hesen Olayan says an Israeli soldier punched her in the face after she refused to evacuate her home in Rafah. “We won’t leave,” she told them. “You already took our homes and our land.” Moments later, a soldier assaulted her, then dragged her to a military site for harsh interrogation.
She was eventually evacuated to the European Hospital for treatment.
Olayan’s story is not an isolated case. Israeli forces have repeatedly been targeting elderly Palestinians in Gaza, beating, torturing, and in some cases, executing them.
In Gaza, elderly Palestinians are increasingly being targeted by Israel. Human rights groups say Israeli soldiers have used older civilians as human shields, tortured them, and even executed them in cold blood.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented the story of 65-year-old Kamel Mohammad Noufal. He was shot dead in front of his family in Gaza City. Soldiers had stormed his building and ordered his entire family out: his wife, three sons, his daughter, their spouses, and nine grandchildren. Most of them were deaf, visually impaired, or both.
Noufal, fluent in Hebrew, tried to explain why his children could not follow the soldiers’ shouted commands. Before he could finish, they shot him at close range. He died on the spot, with his family watching.
Another victim was 79-year-old Basheer Hajji. The Israeli military posted a photo of him online—a soldier handing him water on a road used for evacuation. They used it to show their “humanity.” Hours later, Hajji was dead. He was found with gunshots in his back and head. His granddaughter, Hala, revealed that the army executed her grandfather after staging a photo to whitewash their crimes.
Last year, Israeli airstrikes also destroyed Gaza’s only elderly care center—Dar Al-Wafa—killing its director and injuring several elderly residents and doctors.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,049 elderly Palestinians in just 76 days of war. That’s nearly 1% of the entire elderly population in Gaza—and about 4% of all Palestinians killed in the ongoing assault.
