Gaza: Entire families killed, while 30,000 people wander Rafah looking for safety

11/01/2009| IslamWeb

The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip reached 857 on the morning of the sixteenth day of the current Israeli operations. The injured number at approximately 3,600.

 

Warplanes, ships and tanks continue to fire in crowded Strip. Medical sources report that three Palestinians were killed at midnight Saturday in Israeli attacks on the city and Khan Younis in the southern Strip.

 

A medical source at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis that a "woman was killed and others were injured by a shelling at the areas of Khuza'a and Bani Suhaila" east of Khan Younis. He pointed out that the majority of the injured have been affected "because of gas inhalation from phosphorous missiles."

 

Witnesses said that tank fire severely damaged a house and a medical source noted that further injuries occurred when a jeep was targeted in an air attack in western Gaza City.

 

Overnight Israeli warplanes also launched air raids on two houses in the refugee camps of Nuseirat and Al Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip.

 

In the Nuseirat Refugee Camp three children were injured when Israeli aircraft bombed a central building. Medical sources said that the total number of those killed reached 857 people this morning with about 3,600 injured, however the number is regularly increasing as the bombings have not stopped.

 

Israeli forces killed 40 Palestinians yesterday, report sources, with dozens of injuries from some 70 attacks. The bombardment of homes, vital facilities and factories continue.

 

In a single family seven people were killed simultaneously in an Israeli artillery shelling that targeted the home of Izbat Abded Rabbo, east of Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

 

Eyewitnesses report that the citizens were killed inside a grocery store. They all live in the same house and were downstairs when Israeli forces fired a mortar into the shop. The Abed Rabbo family was taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital: Randa Jamal Abed Rabbo, 45, her son, Sofian Abdul Hai Abed Rabbo, 21, Mustafa Hassan Abed Rabbo, 17, Sami Mohammed Saleh Abed Rabbo, 27 years, Mahfouz Abed Rabbo, 13, Mahmoud Abed Rabbo, 15, and Ramez Jamal Abed Rabbo, 32. There were no survivors.

 

The medical sources said that Israeli forces killed two more children as well, brothers Ali and Amer Kamal, as well as Shadi A. Junaid. The father of two children was wounded along with 10 others in a bombing carried out by the Israeli army on a group of residents near eastern Jabaliya’s Al Sultan Tower. They were taken to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

 

The sources announced the death of two children in another Israeli bombardment that targeted a house in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

 

A member of the Al Qassam Brigades from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City was also killed in an Israeli air attack. Two people were killed and several wounded in an attack on a car in Beach Refugee Camp in western Gaza City.

 

In eastern Khan Younis two members of the Astal family were killed and three injured in a bombing of a house in Al Qarrara Village. Saraya Al Quds announced the killing of one of its members when Israeli forces targeted a home on the coast in western Gaza. A doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital said the bodies of two people arrived from Jabaliya Refugee Camp. Others were killed during a bombing of the Abu Al Khair family home in eastern Gaza’s Al Zeitoun neighborhood.

 

At least 270 children have been killed and four journalists.

 

Israeli aircraft also targeted nine houses in different areas, including three houses in Gaza City and two homes in Rafah, near the hospital, and the army shelled the Civil Defense (Fire Station) headquarters in Khan Younis.

 

Palestinian journalists did not escape the attacks of the Israeli missiles as another hit the house of journalist Samir Al Khalifa in the Zeitoun district. The family escaped death, the home burned to the ground.

 

Israeli aircraft bombed the house of Mahmoud Ashour in Al Bureij Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, which led to a number of injuries. They were transferred to hospitals for treatment, and another rocket landed on a mosque in the camp Safa.

 

Members of the armed resistance continued to launch projectiles at towns around the Strip and at military installations. The Israeli administration dropped leaflets indicating it would expand its attacks. “The Israeli occupation army vowed to step up aggression against the people of Gaza, targeting those who cooperate with the Palestinian resistance fighters, through inflammatory leaflets dropped by Israeli aircraft on the central and southern Gaza Strip,” reported Reuters.

 

Publications focused on the cities of Gaza and Rafah in the southern Strip. There are more than 30,000 displaced people in Rafah after being told to leave their homes or face death.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

A weapons system fired by Israeli forces explodes above the northern Gaza Strip January 11, 2009.

 

PNN