Gaza’s bloodiest day: Israeli blitz kills 23, including 9 children

Palestinian Authority calls for an urgent Arab League summit.


Agencies November 18, 2012

GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Israeli strikes on Sunday killed 23 Palestinians, including 14 women and children, in the bloodiest day of its Gaza bombing campaign, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Nine children, five of them babies and toddlers, and five women were among the victims in violence that raised the overall number of Gazans killed to 69 in around 100 hours of relentless Israeli air strikes.

In Cairo, the Palestinian Authority has asked for an urgent Arab League summit to discuss Israeli “aggression” on Gaza, the League said on Sunday.

Earlier Arab foreign ministers condemned the Israeli
offensive on Gaza and expressed “complete discontent” at the UN Security Council’s failure to bring about a ceasefire.

By far the bloodiest strike was in northern Gaza City where a missile levelled a three-storey building, killing nine members of the Al-Dallu family, five of them children, and two other people, medics said.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra named the dead as policeman Mohammed al-Dallu, 35, Suheila al-Dallu, 50, Samah al-Dallu, 22, and five children: Jamal and Sara, whose ages were not immediately available, five-year-old Yussef, two-year-old Ranin, and 11-month-old Ibrahim.

The body of another woman from the same family was also pulled from the rubble but her identity was not immediately clear.

The other two victims, who lived next door, were named as Amina Mattar al-Muzzana, 83, and Abdullah Mohammed al-Muzzana, 22, Qudra said.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the strike, saying only that the air force had hit “a few targets in northern Gaza City”.

Shortly afterwards, six more Palestinians were killed in four separate strikes – two in Gaza City, one on the Jabaliya refugee camp and one on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

In Gaza City, Sami al Ghafir was killed in a raid on the eastern Shejaiya neighbourhood, and Mohammed al Awf was killed in the north of the city.

The strike on Jabaliya killed Suheil Hamada and his son Moamin as they were driving a water delivery truck through the camp.

And an early-evening strike on Nuseirat killed two men, Aatiya Mubarak and Hossam Abu Shawish, the emergency services said.

Earlier strikes across the strip killed six more Palestinians, four of them children.

At around 2:00 am strikes on the northern town of Beit Hanun killed two toddlers, three-year-old Tamer Abu Saeyfan and his one-year-old sister Jumana.

Several hours later, 18-month-old Iyyad Abu Khusa was killed in a strike east of Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

His two brothers, aged four and five, were critically wounded in the raid, Qudra said.

Medics later reported finding under the rubble of a house in eastern Gaza City the body of a woman who had been killed in a strike earlier in the morning. They named her as Nawal Abdelaal, 52.

And in the late morning an air strike on a small house in the beachfront Shati refugee camp in Gaza City killed 13-year-old Tasneem al Nahal and Ahmad al Nahal, 25, both from the same family.

The bloodshed has killed 69 Palestinians and injured more than 600 since an Israeli air strike which killed a top Hamas militant kicked off the Jewish state’s military campaign against Gaza.

Three Israelis have been killed and more than 50 injured, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency services told AFP. The army said 10 of them were soldiers, one of whom was severely hurt.

On Sunday, nine people were injured by rockets in southern Israel, one of them seriously and two moderately.

So far, the military says it has struck more than 1,132 targets in the Gaza Strip, without saying how many strikes it had carried out.

In the same period, 544 rockets fired by Gaza militants have stuck southern Israel, and another 302 have been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2012.

COMMENTS (38)

Sexton Blake | 11 years ago | Reply

@Cautious: Dear Cautious, If the US forces were as good as you say why have 25,000 Pashtuns kept about 500,000 US/NATO/Mercenaries fully occupied for nearly 12 years with no end in sight. However, keeping to the point of the ET article above I think it is really about US supplied Israeli massacres of Gaza where the majority of people killed are women and children. The US is very good at killing defenseless people.

M.S.Ibraheem | 11 years ago | Reply

@Jat: you seem to be analyzing Pakistan from the view of a world power ,where instead India itself is no miles ahead of PK. Firstly consider Non-state actors such as the Taliban. India has its fair share of insurgents and militants. Take Kashmir ,Nagaland, Manipur and previously Khalistan are all indian counterparts of our Waziristan. Basically what Pakistan faces today ,india has been facing for the past 50 years. Pakistan is at war ,which thankfully our military has been able to cope with unlike the indian armed forces who lost http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-suffered-1874-casualties-without-fighting-a-war/articleshow/45016284.cms?intenttarget=no 1874 soldiers in peacetime Only talks of the incompetence of the institutions. Losing almost a brigade in peace time is no easy feat. Im pretty sure you guys beat Somalia to that trophy.

Now, you lets switch to India. "Ak-47 totting insurgents is nothing new to your regions mentioned above. Naxals ,Maoists and KCF's run ammck without any check. Remember ,the Indian army and civil institutions have no writ in Maoist controlled areas. Talking about the Abbotabad raid, how were 12 heavily armed terrorists with RPG"s ,assault rifles and enough muntions to last 4 days able to infiltrate Mumbai. Lets not mention it took a division of indian armys finest and the "elite" blackcats 4 days to debunk 12 militants. How shocking no ? That too not in some mounatinous town but in Indias largest metropolis. Plus how did that border fight China go in 62 ? Not very well I guess

So basically my advice to you would be to stick cleaning your own house first. Pakistan is a frontline state ,fighting the worlds war for a decade and yet we stand on our feet something india ,im sure would not be able to cope with for a month.

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