Tariq Assakani, the only boy of the Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Assakani serving a 27-year sentence in an Israeli jail, died in a road accident in Gaza on Monday.

During the gathering, nine-year-old Tariq told al-Alam, “I wish my father to be released from prison and live with me, so I have no shortages.”

The incident took place late on Monday when the bus carrying Tariq and 30 other children of prisoners collided with a truck on a road in Gaza.

All the children sustained injuries and five of them are in a critical condition.

Tariq’s father was detained more than eleven years ago and Tariq only met his father twice when he was three years old.

“Where is human rights? I demand all justice seekers to stand by humanity and freedom. I want to see my father, to hear his voice, to touch his body, and hug him for once. I always watch my friends go with their fathers to lovely places but I couldn’t. Simply it is because I don’t have a father or more particularly as he is far away from me. There are Israeli barriers. I don’t know why. My father is not a criminal. He lives in a dark dirty cell for no reason. He cannot see the Moon or even notice the Sun. He is dying to see me. I am too,” Tariq said in an address to the gathering in front of Red Cross office in Gaza.

Palestinians officials, including newly-resigned prime minister Rami Hamdallah, reacted to the incident, expressing sympathy with Tariq’s family.