Gaza family sees over 60 members killed in separate Israeli strikes

Gaza City - Gaza's Tabatibi family is in mourning for the second time in less than a month, after separate Israeli bombardments on buildings they were sheltering in killed more than 60 of their kin.

Palestinians react at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah where relatives pulled from the rubble of the Tabatibi family home were transported on March 16, 2024.
Palestinians react at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah where relatives pulled from the rubble of the Tabatibi family home were transported on March 16, 2024.  © AFP

The latest strike occurred in the early hours of Friday in Gaza City's densely populated Daraj neighborhood, killing at least 25 members of the family, a relative told AFP.

In a narrow street, the six-story building where the Tabatibi family had been staying was still standing on Friday, balconies barely hanging to its facade, the ground floor charred and its inside strewn with rubble.

"We didn't hear a missile come down or anything, we were all asleep," Khaled al-Tabatibi, a surviving member of the family, told AFP.

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"Our house, my sisters, their children, their daughters, all of them are martyred, all of them are in pieces," he said through tears.

"When the occupation aircraft bombed the house, we were asleep. We don't know why they targeted the house, it's a massacre, annihilation."

Ziyad Dardas, a neighbor whose brother was injured in the strike, was at a loss for words.

"This is madness, this is the peak of crime from our leaders and Israeli leaders," he told AFP. "To the (Palestinian) Authority, to Hamas leaders, I say why is this not enough?"

The dead and injured were reportedly taken to Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, which was mostly destroyed in a recent Israeli military operation.

Tabatibi family in Gaza displaced by Israeli bombardments

A Palestinian child inspects the damage to the home of the Tabatibi family after Israeli bombardment in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza on April 12, 2024.
A Palestinian child inspects the damage to the home of the Tabatibi family after Israeli bombardment in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza on April 12, 2024.  © AFP

The Tabatibi family, which has been displaced by Israeli bombardments on several occasions, had already been in mourning.

On March 15, the family had gathered in central Gaza to eat together during the first Friday night of Ramadan, a reunion that soon turned into a bloodbath.

An air strike hit the building where they were staying as women prepared the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 members of the family, witnesses told AFP at the time.

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The health ministry in Gaza, which provided the same death toll, blamed Israel for the strike in the city's Nuseirat area, as did survivors.

Asked about that strike, the Israeli military claimed it targeted two "terror operatives" in Nuseirat "throughout the night," without elaborating.

"They bombed the house while we were in it. My mother and my aunt were preparing the suhoor food. They were all martyred," Mohammed al-Tabatibi said at the time at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, before the bodies of his relatives were stacked on a truck to be driven to a cemetery.

Israel's assault on Gaza has killed at least 33,634 people, mostly women and children, while leaving millions more vulnerable to famine and starvation.

Cover photo: AFP

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