News   /   Palestine

Gazan teenage boy dies of injuries sustained in 2014 Israeli airstrike

This undated picture shows Palestinian teenager Muhammad al-Rifi at al-Wafaa Hospital for Rehabilitation and Specialized Surgery in Gaza City. (Photo by Shehab news agency)

A Gazan teenage boy has died more than four years after being injured in an Israeli aerial attack that targeted his family home in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Al-Wafaa Hospital for Rehabilitation and Specialized Surgery announced that 14-year-old Muhammad al-Rifi died on Saturday morning at the hospital, where he had been taken for medical treatment.

The hospital pointed out that Rifi was suffering from a critical injury in his cervical vertebrae, which had left him quadriplegic and on ventilators for over four years.

The Gazan teenager was critically injured in an Israeli airstrike on his family home in the eastern al-Tuffah neighborhood of the Gaza City during the Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip in 2014.

His father, brother and four of his cousins were killed in that aerial assault.

In early July 2014, Israel waged a war on the Gaza Strip. The 50-day military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children. Over 11,100 others – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people – were also wounded in the war.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

Tensions have been running high near the fence separating the Gaza Strip from the occupied territories ever since anti-occupation protest rallies began in the coastal enclave on March 30. At least 214 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Over 22,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

The Gaza clashes reached their peak on May 14, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which coincided this year with the US embassy relocation from Tel Aviv to occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

On June 13, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, sponsored by Turkey and Algeria, condemning Israel for Palestinian civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution, which had been put forward on behalf of Arab and Muslim countries, garnered a strong majority of 120 votes in the 193-member assembly, with eight votes against and 45 abstentions.

The resolution called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to make proposals within 60 days “on ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection, and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation,” including “recommendations regarding an international protection mechanism.”

It also called for “immediate steps towards ending the closure and the restrictions imposed by Israel on movement and access into and out of the Gaza Strip.”


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku