Paramedics with bodies of children
Photo: Reuters
Father mourns loss
Photo: AP
Palestinian father: They wiped out my family
Gaza father mourns wife, four children killed Monday morning after IDF targeted gunmen
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.
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"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.
