Jamal al-Durrah sat beside the grave of his son Muhammad in Bureij camp. He read the first chapter of the Quran, Surah Al-Fatiha, on his son’s soul and recalled the incident when Muhammad was killed by Israeli army fire 13 years ago in south Gaza, when Jamal was returning by taxi from a shopping trip.

Jamal told Al-Monitor what happened: “On Sept. 30, 2000, I went with Muhammad to Gaza City. Upon our return, there was a lot of shooting and confrontation with Israeli soldiers near the Israeli settlement of Netzarim, so we had to get out of the taxi. I went behind the agricultural lands of the almond trees, east of Salahuddin Street, the location of the clashes between Palestinian youths and the Israeli army. Then we took a street that intersects with Salahuddin. At the intersection’s other corner, there was an Israeli military watchtower from which they started shooting at us directly and continuously for approximately 45 minutes. Muhammad was hit in his right foot. I was scared and tried to comfort him, but he was in high spirits.”

Jamal’s attempt to save his son, who was 12, failed.

“I tried to protect him from the continued shooting by putting him behind a cylindrical cement block on the sidewalk, which we used as refuge from the beginning. But I failed. … I tried very hard to point to the watchtower, from where the shooting was coming. But the shooting continued for a long time. When Muhammad’s head fell on my lap, I knew that he was martyred. I was hit in my right arm and in my lower body. I didn’t know that journalists were videotaping me,” he explained.