According to local eyewitnesses, three young men were killed, Monday, in an Israeli airstrike on al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.An Israeli military spokesperson claimed that the three men, Ala Abu Zneda, Awni Abdul Hadi, and Muhammad Eid, were members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, but no confirmation of this was made by the group.
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad has, in the past, carried out suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, but ceased such attacks after the Hamas party was elected in Palestine in 2006. Even during Israel’s deadly invasion of the Gaza Strip last January, in which over 1,400 Palestinian civilians were killed in a three-week period, over 300 of whom were children, no suicide bombing attacks were made against Israel, and homemade shells fired from Gaza blindly across the border with Israel killed 5 Israeli civilians.
In addition to the bomb which killed the three young men, another missile was fired by the Israeli airforce at a home in al-Bureij refugee camp, but no casualties were reported from that airstrike.
The Israeli military’s statement on the attack said the airforce ‘targeted and identified a number of militants preparing to fire rockets from the central Gaza Strip into Israel’, and held Hamas responsible for any attacks against Israel coming from the Gaza Strip.
The air raids and bombings are a nearly daily occurrence in the Gaza Strip, leading psychologists to report that nearly 90% of Gazan children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and live in terror that they will be killed by a bomb.
According to medics, the three men killed Monday were taken to the al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they were confirmed dead.
