JABALIA: The Alloush family would have been getting ready for breakfast on Sunday morning when a Zionist strike hit their home in northern Gaza, according to a distraught relative. The blast blew dozens of Palestinians into pieces, Abdullah al-Najjar said from the scene of the attack in Jabalia. Many children were among them, according to rescuers.
At around six o’clock, "there was a very huge explosion ... When we arrived here, all the bodies were torn apart,” Najjar said. "This is the loaf of bread that they wanted to eat for breakfast. What’s the benefit of a loaf of bread if there is no safety and peace?” he asked, holding up pieces of pita. Many others had also been in the Alloush family home, which was being used as "a shelter for people during intensified bombing”, Najjar told AFP. "But they all died.”
The civil defense agency in the Gaza Strip said "at least 25” people — 13 children among them — were killed in the house, and more than 30 were injured. It said another strike, on Gaza City’s Sabra district, killed five people, and "a number of civilians are still under the rubble”. At the Jabalia house, people searched through the debris, finding personal items including a child’s stuffed animal. Five people carried a white-bearded elderly man on a wheelchair across the rubble beside the remains of the house. AFP footage showed Palestinians unloading bodies in bloodstained white shrouds from a van at a Jabalia cemetery, before praying and burying them.
‘Children, women’
Since October 6, The Zionist entity’s military has engaged in a withering air and ground assault on parts of northern Gaza including Jabalia, saying their aim is to stop Hamas militants from regrouping. Contacted about Sunday’s strike, the military told AFP it hit a site "in the area of Jabalia in which terrorists were operating”. "These terrorists posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area. The details are under review,” it added.
But Najjar, a relative of many of the victims, denied they belonged "to any organization” and said they were innocent. Neighbor Mohammed Al-Barsh charged that "children, women and innocents” are "targets for the (Zionist) enemy”. A Hamas statement condemned what it called the Jabalia "massacre”, saying the Alloush family home "was crowded with over 50 innocent civilians”. It said most were women and children, including people "who had been forcibly displaced by the occupation from the Jabalia refugee camp”.
‘Unprecedented’ killing
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) on Friday condemned the number of civilians killed in the war, saying women and children comprised nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had been able to verify. "Civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by (the Zionist entity’s) forces,” the OHCHR said. "Conduct by (the Zionist entity’s) forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease.” The entity’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva "categorically” rejected the report, decrying "the inherent obsession of OHCHR with the demonization of (the Zionist entity)”. The heads of UN agencies early this month described northern Gaza as "under siege” and denied "basic aid and life-saving supplies”. — AFP