Israeli drone plays sounds of children crying to lure Palestinians, witnesses say

A video verified by Al Jazeera taken from central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp yesterday documented the sounds of children crying, which were seemingly coming from an Israeli quadcopter plane.

Residents in the area say this is the Israeli army’s latest way to lure civilians and kill them. At least one man was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper when he came out of his home to inspect where the sounds were coming from.

“Yesterday, the area was subjected to Israeli shelling. Three hours after the raids, we heard the voices of children crying out and the voice of a woman,” one of the witnesses, Mohammed Nabhan, said.

“When we went out, we were subjected to heavy fire from the Israeli army and the sound was coming out of an Israeli quadcopter with four propellers,” he said.

Testimonies from camp residents, which were provided to the Euro-Med Monitor team, confirm that the sound of women screaming and babies crying was heard late at night on both Sunday and Monday. When some of the residents went out to investigate and tried to help, they were shot at by Israeli quadcopter drones. The sounds they had heard were in fact recordings playedby the Israeli drones, with the intent of forcing the camp’s residents out into the streets, where they could be easily targeted by snipers and other weaponry.

According to the testimonies, this tactic also involved broadcasting gunshots, armed conflicts, explosions, military vehicle movements, and occasionally songs in Hebrew and Arabic in order to psychologically intimidate civilians who live amid total darkness at night and total disconnection from the external world.

A 20-year-old camp resident, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, reported to the Euro-MedMonitor team: “We were sitting at night when we heard voices of girls and women screaming: ‘Come, help me, I am injured!’ We went out to find out what was happening. No women were found, but we were directly targeted by a quadcopter drone.”

Continued the camp resident, “I fled inside, and two people right in front of me were seriously injured. Because of the ongoing gunfire, we were unable to treat them, so we called an ambulance, and they arrived to transport them. Many residents heard these sounds and responded to provide help.”

A 60-year-old woman reported hearing loud gunfire, then hearing women’s cries of distress, informing the residents that their children were hurt and pleading for help. She went on, saying: “This sound continued for about 10 to 15 minutes, but none of us went outside because it was really late and I knew these were recordings from planes.”

Relative of dead children asks: ‘What did they do?’

Reaction continues after an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 24 people, including 16 children and six women, in southern Rafah.

“These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?” asked one relative Umm Kareem.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18-months old, were among the dead. A woman and three children were still under the rubble, he said.

Resident Umm Hassan Kloub, 35, said her children screamed when they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.

“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.

Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed more than 14,500 children. The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – at least two-thirds of them children and women – since last October.

Israel has yet to provide evidence of Unrwa staff terrorist links, Colonna report says

Israel “has yet to provide supporting evidence” of its claims that employees of the UN relief agency Unrwa are members of terrorist organisations, an independent review led by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna has said.

The Colonna report, which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that Unrwa had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting but that “the Israeli government has not informed Unrwa of any concerns relating to any Unrwa staff based on these staff lists since 2011”.

Israeli allegations of the involvement of Unrwa staff in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency. The funding was cut despite the dire needs of 2.3 million people in Gaza, most of whom have been forced from their homes by the Israeli offensive and have been struggling since then to find water, food, shelter or medical care.

Most of the donor nations have resumed their funding in recent weeks. UK ministers had said they would wait for the Colonna report to make a decision on resuming funding, but US financial support of Unrwa has been permanently banned by Congress since the allegations were made.

A separate investigation is being carried out into the 7 October attack by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services.

The Colonna review, which was drafted with the help of three Nordic research institutes and is due to be published later on Monday, makes clear that Israel has yet to substantiate any of its broader claims about the involvement of Unrwa staff in Hamas or Islamic Jihad.