Investigation reveals details of killing of elderly Palestinian couple used as human shields

Middle East Eye

21-02-2025

An investigation by Euro-Med Monitor has revealed further details of the killing of an elderly Palestinian couple who were forced to wear explosives and act as human shields by Israeli forces during a military incursion on Gaza City's Zeytoun neighbourhood in May 2023.
Israeli news site HaMakom previously reported that Israeli forces strapped explosives around the neck of an elderly Palestinian man and used him as a human shield before killing him and his wife.
According to the report, the man, who used a walking stick, was forced to scout buildings in the neighbourhood to ensure they were safe for around eight hours.
An Israeli soldier told HaMakom that after the explosives were placed around the Palestinian man's neck, he was told "that if he does something wrong or not the way we want, the person behind him will pull the rope and his head will detach from the body".
While the original report did not name the victims, their ages and the date, location, and circumstances of their killing align with the Euro-Med Monitor investigation.
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Euro-Med Monitor identified the couple as Mohammed Fahmi Abu Hussein, 70, and Mazyona Hassan Fares Abu Hussein, 65.
While Hamakom quoted Israeli soldiers saying that the couple were shot dead by another battalion as they were instructed to flee towards the Mawasi 'safe zone,' the findings of the Euro-Med Monitor investigation suggest that they were killed by the detonation of the explosives.
​​'The Israeli army's admission... that they had used my father as a human shield and then brutally murdered him alongside my mother shocked us'
- Ahmed Abu Hussein
According to the investigation, Mayzona's body 'was reduced to nothing,' while the right side of Mohammed's body was completely disfigured, with one leg missing.
The couple's son, Ahmed, told Euro-Med Monitor that he found pieces of his father's body at Al-Ahil Hospital, and 'fragments' of his mother's body on Salah al-Din Road, east of Gaza, 'where it seems that she was killed by setting off explosives'.
Hussein said that his father was only identifiable by a tattoo on his hand, while his mother's body 'was utterly destroyed' and he could only recognise her by the gold teeth remaining on her jaw.
He added that his parents were carrying a bag full of cash and gold that went missing following their killing.
​​'The Israeli army's admission and subsequent announcement that they had used my father as a human shield and then brutally murdered him alongside my mother shocked us," Hussein said.
"After days of losing contact, we hoped they were still alive, but we later learnt that they had been brutally murdered in a manner we could not have predicted."