3-year-old shot dead in Gaza as U.N. report accuses Israel of targeting children

The U.N. report alleged Israel has a “deliberate strategy” of targeting children in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel rejects.

They were supposed to be safe.

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Bahaa Abu al-Ajeen was walking his 3-year-old son, Rayan, back to the tarpaulin-covered shack they called home, a makeshift dwelling providing some shelter from the sun on a war-ruined farm in central Gaza.

The father and son walked in what was designated as a safe area for civilians close to the “yellow line,” a boundary marked with yellow blocks and flags that divides Palestinian-controlled parts of the Gaza Strip from areas under Israeli military control. But al-Ajeen, 38, said that as they were confronted by Israeli soldiers, he froze.