“Why Did They Kill My Entire Family?” asks Gaza Bombing Survivor

Maureen Clare Murphy

The number of victims of Israel’s merciless bombing of Gaza reached ninety fatalities as of this writing, several members of individual families among the dead.

One such family is that of 75-year-old Muhammad Hamad of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. Six members of his family were killed when Israel bombed the home of his thirty-year-old son Abd al-Hafez Hamad, a commander with the armed group Islamic Jihad, on Tuesday.

“The missile fell on my family with no warning,” he told the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (full testimony below).

There is no safe refuge in the Gaza Strip, and no escape for its more than 1.7 million residents.

Defence for Children International Palestine reported earlier today that at least eighteenchildren were confirmed to have been killed in Gaza since Monday:

Aseel Ibrahim Fayek al-Masri, 16, whose 14-year-old brother died in an attack on the family home in Beit Hanoun on Wednesday, died after sustaining injuries in the same incident.

Suleiman Salim Mousa al-Astal, 17, and Mousa Mohammad Taher al-Astal, 14, were killed after being hit by a missile as they sat watching the World Cup with friends on the beach overnight on Thursday. The two boys were among eight reported fatalities after an Israeli aircraft bombed the crowd of people watching the football game.

Abdullah Ramadan Jamil Abu Ghazal, 4, was with his mother in their home when he was hit by shrapnel fragments from an Israeli missile that exploded nearby. Abdullah died instantly when he sustained head injuries.

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