The strike in Nuseirat was one among 60 ”lethal air strikes” reported in a single day
Nuseirat, Gaza:
Displaced by Israeli bombardment, the Tabatibi household gathered in central Gaza to eat collectively in the course of the first Friday night time of Ramadan, a reunion that quickly became a massacre.
An air strike hit the constructing the place they had been staying as girls ready the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 family members, witnesses instructed AFP on Saturday.
The well being ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which supplied the identical loss of life depend, blamed Israel for the strike in Nuseirat, as did survivors.
Requested concerning the strike on Saturday, the Israeli navy stated it focused two ”terror operatives” in Nuseirat ”all through the night time”, with out elaborating.
”The circumstances of the incident are nonetheless being reviewed,” it stated.
Mohammed al-Tabatibi, 19, stood within the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in close by Deir al-Balah, the place the our bodies of his kinfolk had been unfold out.
”That is my mom, that is my father, that is my aunt, and these are my brothers,” Tabatibi, whose left hand was injured within the strike, stated by tears.
”They bombed the home whereas we had been in it. My mom and my aunt had been making ready the suhoor meals. They had been all martyred,” he added earlier than the our bodies had been 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 not less than two youngsters — had 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 considerations about tensions on the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Nevertheless it was a unique story in Gaza.
The strike in Nuseirat was one among 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,” stated Salama Maarouf of the Hamas-run authorities media workplace.
’Take a look at the extent of the destruction’
The warfare 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 navy marketing campaign to destroy Hamas has killed not less than 31,553 individuals, principally girls and kids, based on the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry.
In Rafah, the place nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million individuals have sought refuge, extra bloodshed is feared after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace stated on Friday he had authorised plans for a navy operation there.
But even earlier than any such operation begins, air strikes proceed, together with one early Saturday that witnesses stated 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 ”a great 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 stated the true depend of the strike that killed 36 members of his household might rise.
”A number of the martyrs we’re unable to retrieve. We lack gear, bulldozers, equipment, or the rest, ” he instructed AFP, his fingers and sweatshirt coated with mud from attempting to clear rubble.
”We retrieve them solely with our fingers. We introduced shovels and hammers, however to no avail. Take a look at the extent of the destruction.”
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)