Baha Abu al-Ajeen, 32, is a farmer who regularly goes to his farmland in the Wadi al-Salqa area, about 150 meters from the yellow line that Israel established to demarcate its forces within the Gaza Strip after the genocidal war of October 2023.
At 6pm on Sunday, Baha left home in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, as usual, taking his three-year-old son, Rayan, and his brother-in-law, Khaled Abu Gharaba, to check on their farmland. However, the trip ended in tragedy.
The Abu al-Ajeen family accuse the Israeli army of kidnapping their son and his father, and shooting them without justification, resulting in the child's death and the father's injury.
Nawaf Abu al-Ajeen, the family elder and a relative of Baha, told Middle East Eye that the three of them were shocked to see Israeli soldiers positioned inside a house in the area. The soldiers opened fire directly and without warning.
The bullets immediately pierced Rayan's eye, causing it to gouge out, and exited the back of his head, al-Ajeen said. Another bullet struck his father in the leg.
