GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Displaced by Israeli bombardment, the Tabatibi household gathered in central Gaza to eat collectively throughout the first Friday night time of Ramadan, a scene that quickly become a massacre.
An air strike hit the constructing the place they have been staying as ladies ready the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 family members, survivors informed AFP on Saturday.
The well being ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which supplied the identical loss of life toll, blamed Israel for the strike in Nuseirat, whereas the Israeli army mentioned it was trying into the incident.
“That is my mom, that is my father, that is my aunt, and these are my brothers,” 19-year-old Mohammed Al-Tabatibi, whose left hand was injured within the strike, mentioned by means of tears on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in close by Deir Al-Balah.
“They bombed the home whereas we have been in it. My mom and my aunt have been making ready the suhoor meals. They have been all martyred.”
He spoke as our bodies have been unfold out within the hospital courtyard, then stacked on a truck to be pushed to a cemetery.
As a result of there weren’t sufficient physique luggage, a number of the useless — together with no less than two youngsters — have been wrapped in white fabric stained with blood, AFPTV footage confirmed.
The primary Friday of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which started on Monday, handed peacefully in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, regardless of issues about tensions on the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
But it surely was a unique story in Gaza.
The strike in Nuseirat was one in all 60 “lethal air strikes” reported in a single day by the press workplace of the Hamas-run authorities, from Gaza Metropolis within the north to Rafah within the south.
“It is a bloody night time, a really bloody night time,” mentioned Salama Maarouf of the Hamas-run authorities media workplace.
The struggle in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 assault on southern Israel, which resulted within the deaths of about 1,160 individuals, principally civilians, based on an AFP tally of Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory army marketing campaign to destroy Hamas has killed no less than 31,553 individuals, principally ladies and youngsters, based on the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry.
In Rafah, the place the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million individuals have sought refuge, extra bloodshed is feared after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned on Friday he had accredited plans for a army operation there.
But even earlier than any such operation begins, air strikes proceed, together with one early Saturday that witnesses mentioned killed Issa Duhair, the muezzin of a mosque, alongside together with his two sons.
Mahmoud Duhair, a 41-year-old relative who lives close by, described the muezzin as “ man” who, as regular, dutifully carried out the decision to prayer earlier than daybreak on Saturday, then went to eat together with his household “when his home was struck.”
Again in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, Yussef Tabatibi mentioned the true toll of the strike that killed 36 members of his household might rise.
“A few of the martyrs we’re unable to retrieve. We lack gear, bulldozers, equipment, or the rest, ” he informed AFP, his arms and sweatshirt coated with mud from attempting to clear rubble.
“We retrieve them solely with our arms. We introduced shovels and hammers, however to no avail. Have a look at the extent of the destruction.”
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