Israel’s military on Saturday massacred a Palestinian family in Gaza shortly after it refused to cooperate with the army on security matters in the enclave, a human rights group has said.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said it documented an attack committed by the Israeli army at dawn against the Bakr family in the Shati (Beach) refugee camp, in west Gaza City.
The attack killed nine family members, including women and children.
Euro-Med said the massacre occurred "just one day after the family refused an Israeli request to remain in the area and form a local militia working on behalf of the army and carrying out unlawful tasks."
The rights monitor quoted a relative as saying that the family elder (mukhtar) received a call from the Israeli army offering protection – on the condition that the family form a local militia affiliated with the military, similar to the Abu Shabab proxy militia operating in the southern Gaza Strip.
The family refused the offer, and "preferred sleeping in the streets and lying on the ground to walking the path of betrayal," Mu'tasim Bakr wrote on social media.
At dawn on Saturday, a home belonging to the Bakr family was bombed, killing nine people and injuring others, according to medical sources.
It was not immediately clear whether the strike targeted the same household that had received the offer, or other relatives from the extended Bakr family.
The Abu Shabab militia is made up largely of former prisoners held by Hamas and members of the Tarabin Bedouin tribe in eastern Rafah, near a key crossing between Gaza and Israel.
Over the past several months, the group has positioned itself as a significant new player in war-torn Gaza's fractured landscape, capitalising on growing internal dissent against Hamas.
It recently advertised on social media for recruits with police and security experience, promising monthly salaries from 3,000 to 5,000 shekels ($780 to $1,500).
Other groups opposed to Hamas have emerged in Beit Lahia and Shujaiya in northern Gaza, and in eastern Khan Younis in the south, sources close to Hamas and residents say.
Collaboration or death
Euro-Med said Israel is pursuing a dangerous policy of blackmail against families in Gaza, forcing them to choose between two options: either cooperating with the Israeli army and its militias, or facing mass killing, starvation, and forced displacement.
The monitor noted that this policy is part of an escalating genocidal pattern that has shifted from individual extortion to collective pressure, aiming to dismantle the fabric of Palestinian society by compelling individuals to betray their community, destroying social bonds, and subjecting survivors to survival conditions that shatter the group’s identity and ability to persist.
The rights monitor documented testimonies it described as "shocking" from family members who were forced by Israel to choose between remaining under siege and bombardment, or facing forced displacement, amid direct and explicit threats of death if they did not comply with the army’s orders.
It also reported other testimonies from Palestinian families who faced direct pressure to cooperate with the Israel military in exchange for being allowed to stay in certain areas or receive essential aid, noting that the army is turning humanitarian aid into a tool of blackmail.
Euro-Med reported receiving information from the Al-Deiri and Dughmash families regarding similar Israeli offers to join local militias.
When these offers were rejected, the Israeli army intensified its detonating of car bombs in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood, where these families' homes are located.
"The army then carried out a wide-scale strike targeting several homes, including a residential block belonging to the Dughmash family, just days ago, resulting in the deaths of more than 60 family members, many of whom remain trapped under the rubble to this day."
It called on the United Nations General Assembly to adopt an urgent resolution to establish and deploy a peacekeeping force in Gaza to ensure an end to crimes being committed against civilians.
It also urged all countries to "fulfil their legal responsibilities and take immediate action to stop the crime of genocide in Gaza through all means, adopt all necessary measures to protect Palestinian civilians there, ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice, and guarantee accountability and prosecution for its crimes."
Israel’s war on Gaza is now widely acknowledged as a genocide.
More than 65,900 people have been killed in the war, most of them women and children, Gaza’s health ministry says.
The true death toll is believed to be much higher, with thousands of uncounted victims buried beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings.