A Palestinian child with severe burns is being treated in an Israeli hospital after a devastating house fire in Gaza that took the lives of his three young siblings on Saturday. The tragedy has shaken the Gaza Strip and spurred angry finger pointing among the two dominant Palestinian factions, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Fatah.
Mahnad al-Handi, 7, was taken to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan on Sunday evening, a spokeswoman for the hospital confirmed, following the fire caused by candles used during a local power shortage.
Mahnad was severely burned in the fire, which tragically claimed the lives of his three young siblings—three-year-old Yusra, two-year-old Rahaf, and two-month-old Nasir.
“We were at the beach and came home to find there was no electricity again,” Mohammed Al-Hendi, the children’s father, told Al Jazeera at the funeral. “They were sleeping, and I went out to bring dinner. When I came home, they told me my children were burned alive.”
Ahmed will have to undergo multiple therapies before making a full recovery, though he is no longer in critical condition, Sheba Medical Center Spokeswoman Adi Cohen said.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), he IDF unit responsible for implementing government policy in Judea and Samaria and vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip, which organized the transfer into Israel, said al-Handi will stay in Israel until his medical condition improves. He is accompanied by his grandmother.
At the funeral procession, Hamas leaders cited the energy crisis in the Gaza Strip and placed the blame on Israel as well as on PA head Mahmoud Abbas’s administration. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority of making the power outages worse by imposing taxes on fuel for Gaza’s power plant, which has caused Gaza residents to spend 18 hours a day without power.
A press release by Hamas Spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri accused Abbas and the Palestinian Authority of hoarding electricity for themselves. The PA, meanwhile, dismissed the Hamas charges as “false accusations.”
“Their guilt can only be erased when they exempt Gaza from fuel taxes and consent to new Israeli feeder lines,” Abu Zuhri said.
By: Joshua B. Dermer/TPS
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