Israel Kills Family Of 9 In Gaza

By Al Jazeera

November 18, 2012 "Al Jazeera" --- Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba, reporting from Gaza, has said that the search continues for survivors of an Israeli air strike that killed nine members of the same family in Gaza.

Our correspondent said rescue workers worked frantically to pick up the debris from "the massive crater where the  residential building stood".

Five children were among the nine members of the extended family that died in the attack.

With darkness quickly falling, Al Jazeera's Baba said "a frantic search ... at top speed" has been conducted to see if anyone else is still alive under the rubble.

Though such tactics are a risk to anyone that may still be buried under the wreckage, our correspondent said the situation is "far from ideal [and] ... time is of the essence".

The deaths in the well-known extended family have left many in Gaza wondering if "anybody is safe ... people really are very worried about their own safety" as a result.

The report comes as medical sources tell Al Jazeera that they have found another body from the rubble of a destroyed house in Gaza City. This brings the death toll since Wednesday to 66.

Update - Israel - 9:37 P.M. The death toll in the IDF attack on a house in the northern Gaza Strip rises to 12, including four children and five women, all of the same family.

See also - 10 Killed; Hamas HQ  destroyed

- WARNING -

Report contains Graphic Images

In photos: Israel relentlessly bombs Gaza, West Bank protests repressed

The Electronic Intifada

18 November 2012

The mother of 10-month-old Hanen Tafesh, killed the day before in an Israeli air strike, mourns over her daughter’s body before her funeral in Gaza City, 16 November.

(Majdi Fathi / APA images)

Israel has shown no mercy in its bombing of the besieged and occupied Gaza Strip, as airstrikes and shelling entered into the fifth day on Sunday (see previous photostory documenting the run-up to and first days of the assault). Israel has reportedly approved the drafting of 75,000 reservists, though so far there has been no ground invasion.

With nearly 50 fatalities in Gaza since Israel’s breaking of a tenuous ceasefire on Wednesday, the World Health Organization warned on Saturday that Gaza’s hospitals “are overwhelmed with casualties from Israel’s bombings and face critical shortages of drugs and medical supplies,” according to the Reuters news agency (“Gaza hospitals stretched, need supplies to treat wounded: WHO”).

Reuters adds: “the WHO, quoting Health Ministry officials in Gaza, said 382 people have been injured - 245 adults and 137 children.” Gaza’s health facilities were already “severely over stretched mainly as a result of the siege of Gaza,” the UN organization said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups fired more long-rage rockets towards Tel Aviv, and sirens were heard in Jerusalem for the first time. Gaza groups also fired short-range rockets, many of them intercepted by the Iron Dome system, according to Israeli media. Rockets were also reported to have been fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket fired from Gaza on Thursday.

Protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza erupted across the West Bank, where protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers. According to the Ma’an News Agency, five Palestinian citizens of Israel were detained at a protest in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood and ten persons were detained by Israel at protests in Gaza across the West Bank yesterday. Israeli forces also arrested protesters outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday.

Ma’an also reports that “dozens have been injured in clashes with Israeli forces, several seriously.” On Saturday two protesters were hit in the head with tear gas canisters at a protest at Ofer military jail near Ramallah, and a head injury was reported at a protest at Huwwara checkpoint near Nablus. A protester in the central West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum was seriously injured when a tear gas hit him in the head on Friday, and another protester was arrested at the same demonstration.

Solidarity demonstrations continue to be held in dozens of cities worldwide (a continuously updated list can be found here). 

Palestinian mourners carry the bodies of Tahrir Salman and Mohammed Salman in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, 16 November. The two civilians were killed when an Israeli warplane attacked a number of civilians who were in the garden of a house belonging to Ghazi Abed Salman, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

(Ashraf Amra / APA images)

Palestinian women mourn four-year-old Mahmoud Raed Sadallah, who was killed following an explosion in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, 16 November.

(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

Emergency workers dig out a wounded man buried under sand after an Israeli air strike took place near his car in the northern Gaza Strip, 15 November.

(Mohammed Salem / Reuters)

A damaged UN-run school next to the Civil Department of the Ministry of Interior building, bombed earlier in the day in Gaza City’s Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, 17 November. The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) announced that one of its teachers, Marwan Abu El Qumsan, was killed Wednesday by a nearby airstrike.

(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

A damaged home near the Council of Ministers building in Gaza City, which was completely destroyed during an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day, 17 November.

(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

Palestinians inspect a destroyed mosque after an Israeli air strike in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip, 17 November.

(Ashraf Amra / APA images)

A Palestinian man carries bones from a grave after an Israeli airstrike on a cemetery in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, 16 November.

(Eyad Al Baba / APA images)

A policeman looks at an unexploded missile fired by an Israeli aircraft in Gaza City, 17 November.

(Majdi Fathi / APA images)

Palestinian Prime Minister in the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh and Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Kandil observe the treatment of a patient who was wounded during an Israeli strike, Gaza City, 16 November.

(Mohammed Ostaz / APA images)

Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem visits the Gaza City office building of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh which was destroyed by an Israeli air strike, 17 November.

(Majdi Fathi / APA images)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a meeting of the Palestinian leadership at his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 16 November. Abbas said in a televised speech that day that he has urged the US and European countries to pressure Israel to halt the offensive.

(Issam Rimawi / APA images)

A tank on a flat-bed truck sits at an Israeli gas station on its way to the boundary with Gaza, 17 November.

(ActiveStills)

An explosion and smoke are seen after Israeli air strikes in Gaza City, 17 November.

(Yasser Gdeeh / Reuters)

Two rockets are launched from Gaza City towards Israel, 16 November.

(Naaman Omar / APA images)

Israelis take cover as the Israeli military launches a missile from the Iron Dome defense missile system designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, south Tel Aviv, 17 November.

(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

Palestinians react to the sound of an Israeli F-16 warplane flying at low attitude above the ruins of the Civil Department of the Ministry of Interior building, which was completely destroyed in the morning in the Gaza City neighborhood of Tal al-Hawa, 17 November.

(Anne Paq / ActiveStills)

Palestinians shop at a central Gaza City market while Israeli aircraft continue to bomb the Gaza Strip, 17 November.

(Majdi Fathi / APA images)

Palestinian youth throw stones at an Israeli military tower during clashes near Aida refugee camp in the West Bank town of Bethlehem in protest of Israeli military strikes on Gaza, 15 November.

(ActiveStills)

Palestinians protest next to Israeli police on horses during a protest in solidarity with Gaza outside Jerusalem’s Old City, 16 November.

(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

Hamas supporters in the West Bank city of Hebron protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza Strip, 16 November.

(Mamoun Wazwazi / APA images)

A Palestinian protester runs for cover from tear gas during a protest against Israel’s operations in Gaza Strip outside Ofer military prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah, 17 November.

(Issam Rimawi / APA images)

Hamas supporters in the West Bank city of Hebron protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza Strip, 16 November.

(Mamoun Wazwazi / APA images)

Palestinian youths attend a Gaza solidarity rally in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, 16 November.

(Mahmoud Zayyata / AFP/GettyImages)

Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv carrying signs reading “In Gaza and Sderot the children want to Live,” 15 November.

(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

Hundreds gather in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, 16 November.

(Rob Stothard / Polaris)

Demonstrators protest the attacks on Gaza outside Israel’s embassy in central London, 15 November.

(Stefan Wermuth / Reuters)

Hundreds march in solidarity with Gaza in Edinburgh, Scotland, 17 November.

(Jalal Abukhater)

Demonstrators marched through downtown Boston and rallied outside the Israeli consulate to protest Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, 15 November.