How a Palestinian with Down’s syndrome was mauled to death by Israeli military dogs

By Humaira Ahad

In another spine-chilling incident, 24-year-old Palestinian man Muhammad Bhar, who was suffering from Down syndrome and autism, was killed by an Israeli army dog in broad daylight.

Bhar’s diabolic murder earlier this month sent shock waves across the globe and once again brought to focus the genocidal war crimes of the Israeli regime against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Bhar family, which had been displaced at least five times during the war, sought refuge in their home in eastern Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood when Israeli troops stormed their house on June 27.

The regime forces first unleashed their sniffer dogs into the house. The dogs instantly attacked Bhar who was made to sit in the safest corner of the living room by his family.

While describing her specially-abled brother, Bhar’s sister said he was heavy and found mobility challenging and his disabilities meant that he needed constant assistance with even the simplest things such as eating and drinking.

“The dog attacked him, biting his chest and then his hand. Muhammed didn’t speak, but out of horror, he was screaming ‘wala, wala’ (hey you). The dog bit his arm and blood started oozing out. I wanted to get to him but I couldn’t,” Bhar’s mother Nabila said while recounting the traumatizing incident.

“The Israeli army didn’t allow anyone to get near him. He was patting the dog’s head saying, ‘Khalasya habibi’ (enough my dear enough). In the end, he relaxed his hand and the dog started tearing at him while he was bleeding,” the grieving mother added, as cited in media.

Bhar’s desperate screams pierced through the neighborhood as he struggled to free himself from a military dog let loose by the marauding Israeli forces.

Following the attack, Bhar was taken to a separate room and the rest of the family was expelled from the house by the regime forces.

Nabila pleaded with them to let her be with her son who was solely dependent on his mother.

“He didn’t know how to eat, drink, or change his clothes. I am the one who changed his nappies. I am the one who fed him. He didn’t know how to do anything by himself,” Nabila was quoted as saying.

Bhar’s screams made the distraught mother restless, as she could guess the desperate state of her specially-abled son who was begging for water.

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She kept pleading with the Israeli forces to allow her to be with her son but she was threatened and forced to leave the house at gunpoint, according to reports quoting her.

The family left without Bhar, spending a week away from home, waiting in agony as they remained unaware of his condition and whereabouts.

When the Israeli bombardment slowed down, they rushed back to the house, desperate to know Bhar’s condition. On entering the house, they were shocked to see his lifeless body lying in a dilapidated condition with worms eating his face.

Explaining her son’s health condition, Nabila mentioned that her son’s Down syndrome was severe. His mental development “was at the level of a toddler.”

“Muhammed was very innocent. He could not understand usual things. He was like a one-year-old. I cannot bear to think of what they did to him, or how they left him to die like this,” the devastated mother was quoted as saying following Bhar’s murder.

Two of Bhar’s brothers were arrested by the regime forces while being forcefully displaced. Their whereabouts are still unknown.

In 2002, Bhar’s father was also killed by the Israeli forces during an invasion of eastern Gaza.

Military dogs used against Palestinians

However, it wasn’t the first such incident of Israeli combat or sniffer dogs attacking Palestinians.

Last month, a video went viral showing a 70-year-old woman, Dawlat al-Tanani being attacked by an Israeli dog at her home in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.

"As I was drifting off to sleep, the dog wearing a camera on its back entered the room and attacked me. It sank its sharp teeth into my arm until it reached the bone, dragging me across the floor while soldiers stood outside," al Tanini was quoted as saying in media.

“I swear I had seen death with my own eyes,” the grandmother said.

The septuagenarian could not seek immediate medical help due to Israeli bombardment in the region.

After walking for several hours, she finally reached the hospital the next day.

The footage showing Israeli forces unleashing a trained dog on al Tanini sparked outrage on social media with netizens condemning the barbaric Israeli attack on an old woman.

The Geneva-based human rights group, Euro-Med Monitor, published a report in June revealing that “dogs are being used to systematically attack, intimidate, maul – and even sexually assault – Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israeli detention facilities.”

In December, Hussam Abu Safiya, head of the pediatric department of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, said that the Israeli military unleashed attack dogs in a raid at the hospital.

The Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in December and March, besieging and shelling the medical premises for several days.

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Earlier this year in February, Israeli forces stormed Khan Yunis Nasser Hospital with dogs to forcibly evacuate the medical staff and displaced people sheltering there, Dr Islam Sawali, preventive medicine specialist at the hospital said.

As per different reports, the dogs are also used to intimidate, beat, and sexually assault prisoners and detainees in notorious Israeli prisons. 

Euro-Med Monitor said “numerous incidents of Israeli forces using large police dogs during military operations in the Strip” had been recorded, particularly during Israeli military raids of homes, shelters, and medical facilities.

The Israeli army also used dogs during the second invasion of the al-Shifa Medical Complex in March 2024. The dogs mauled dead bodies and also wounded displaced people in the hospital courtyard in late 2023.

“Sometimes the dogs were let loose on us, torturing us systematically and sometimes collectively. Dogs used to frequently injure and maul us,” Dr Hamed Abu Al-Khair, who was detained by the Israeli army from Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, was quoted as saying.

“A few of us suffered from severe dog bites to the point where we could hear bones cracking due to the extreme pain they caused.”

Palestinian detainees released by the regime spoke of the brutal and inhumane use of Israeli army dogs to rape prisoners and detainees.

Fadi Saif al-Din Bakr, a Palestinian lawyer who was released after 45 days of detention in an Israeli prison said the soldiers pulled the young man sitting to my right, forced him to sleep on the ground, and tied his hands and feet.

“Suddenly, the occupation soldiers let loose trained police dogs on the young man, who was subjected to [rape]. Throughout the entire ordeal I endured, this was among the most awful things that I witnessed.”

Thirty-six-year-old Hassan Abu Raida, another released detainee, said they “moved me and the other detainees to a prison. They threw us to the ground and made the dogs urinate on us [as we lay there].”

Quoting the Director General of Gaza Health Ministry, Ryan W Grim, a US-based investigative journalist wrote on X, “The biggest affliction we have heard from some, which has been reported by more than one person, that the occupation tortured them in a very sadistic and barbaric way, which has not been seen before in the history of humanity, in which they brought in trained dogs and made these dogs carry out vile actions against the detainees…”

“It was not just a single detainee who told us this story, but there are witnesses,” Grim wrote.

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