Palestinian father: They wiped out my family

Gaza father mourns wife, four children killed Monday morning after IDF targeted gunmen
Ali Waked and Reuters

Grieving father: "They wiped out my family," said Ahmed Abu Meatak, putting his hands on his head in despair and weeping as the bodies of his wife and four children were prepared for burial.

Earlier Monday, Palestinian sources said the family was killed by an IDF shell that hit their house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

IDF Responds

IDF: Palestinian family killed by terrorist bomb / Hanan Greenberg

Mother, four children killed in Gaza Strip Monday morning died after explosive device carried by terrorists detonated, IDF says. Army inquiry shows that device exploded after terrorists were targeted by Air Force

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However, the IDF later said that an army investigation into the matter showed that the deaths were caused by a blast that resulted from an explosive device found on the bodies of two Palestinian gunmen killed in an IDF air raid.

"I left home for a few minutes to look for one of my children," the 70-year old father told the BBC. "I heard a blast and when I returned home I found my wife and children dead. They had been eating breakfast, and my wife was holding one of our children in her arms."

The funeral was held on Monday afternoon, while Israeli jets were flying above. Hamas leader Dr. Nizar Rian said during the funeral, that the organization will not put down its weapons until the towns of Jaffa, Haifa, Ashkelon, are released, "and until Muslims return to pray at the mosques in these looted cities."

He added that the Palestinians would continue to fight "until we make the State of Israel vanish." According to Rian, the more Palestinians die, the more determined all Muslims will become. "Let them kill our children, our men, and our wives. We will continue to fight for Palestine and for Islam."

"This aggression does not serve efforts being exerted to achieve calm, and it obstructs the peace process," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement carried by WAFA news agency.