Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose three daughters and a niece were killed in January 2009 when his house in Gaza was struck by Israeli tank fire during Operation Cast Lead, has his day in Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday.
“I hope Prime Minister (Naftali) Bennett calls me for a meeting to apologize and offer compensation for my daughter and niece’s lives. I’m committed to bring my daughters to justice in a civilized, legal human way. That’s what I would like. The goal is how we can achieve justice in a legal way. We have to have order and good relations and for people to follow rules,” Abuelaish told The Media Line on Monday morning before the hearing.
Abuelaish is in Israel for the Supreme Court’s hearing on his civil lawsuit against the State of Israel, seeking justice for the deaths of daughters Bessan, 21; Mayar, 15; and Aya, 13; and niece Nour, 17. Abuelaish, who worked as an ob-gyn at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv at the time of the attack and was a peace activist, moved with his five remaining children to Canada after the attack, where he works as a professor of global health at the University of Toronto.
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Abuelaish visited over the weekend with an Israeli family in the central Israeli city of Ness Ziona who named their daughter, now 8, Aya, after his young daughter who was killed in the attack.
“This is our Aya,” he told The Media Line. “I went to see her and bring her gifts. She is for me my daughter. When we find our humanity, how our children can bring us to justice. If children can unite us, we need to overcome the barrier we create,” he also said.
Abuelaish said a letter was sent last week by several Knesset members to Bennett, calling on the prime minister to apologize for the killing of his daughters and niece.
Abuelaish, who published the book “I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity,” has said that he will donate any money he receives in a judgement or a settlement to the Daughters for Life Foundation that he established in memory of his daughters. The foundation, which provides educational scholarships, is dedicated to empowering young women in the Middle East.