Day 162: Dozens Killed by Israeli Airstrikes; Including 36 Family Members

On Saturday, the 162nd day of the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the 6th day of the holy month of Ramadan, the Gaza Health Ministry confirmed 7 new massacres against defenseless Palestinian civilians within the last 24 hours, killing more than 60 and injuring at least 100. One of these massacres occurred in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, as an Israeli bombing targeted a home, killing 7 and injuring many more. There was also an overnight airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp where many civilians were sheltered, at least 36 members of one family were killed while gathering for Ramadan breakfast before dawn.

Medical sources announced that the occupation forces committed 7 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of 63 citizens and the injury of 112 others, during the past 24 hours, noting that a number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.

The Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported on the Al-Tatabibi family massacre, in which 36 family members were killed. The young man, Muhammad Al-Tatabibi,19 years old, was the last remaining family member. He stood on Saturday morning and showed the Wafa reporter dozens of the bodies of martyrs lying on the ground in the courtyard of the emergency department of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, as he cried for many of his family members who were victims. Israeli raid.

Mohammad was injured in his left hand as a result of the bombing that killed 36 members of his family and relatives in the Nuseirat camp near Deir al-Balah.

As for the survivors, they were injured in the raid that targeted the home of their relatives, during suhoor, on the first Friday night of the month of Ramadan, where the family sought safety after they were forced to flee from the northern Gaza Strip, which was devastated in the ongoing Israeli aggression since the 7th of last October.

Fighting back tears, Mohammad told Agence France Presse, “This is my mother, this is my father, this is my aunt, and these are my brothers… They bombed the house while we were in it. My mother and aunt were preparing the suhoor food… They were all killed. I don’t know why they bombed the house and committed a massacre.”

In addition to members of Mohammad’s family, five martyrs and 30 wounded arrived at the hospital, according to the hospital administration. They were injured in Israeli raids that targeted other areas in Deir al-Balah and its environs.

The bodies of the 36 killed members of the Tabatibi family and other neighbors who were killed in the airstrike were placed in a truck originally designated for transporting humanitarian aid to the center of the Strip. The hospital used it because there were no cars, trucks, or fuel, according to what one of its officials confirmed.

Among the martyrs were a number of children and two pregnant women. The bodies were wrapped in plastic bags and blankets, as the medics ran out of special burial bags, which have become rare due to the huge number of martyrs in the Gaza Strip since the start of the aggression.

A group of mourners, including three wounded members of the family, walked behind the truck towards the “Martyrs’ Cemetery” in Deir al-Balah, where they buried the in a large pit parallel to the main cemetery, which could no longer accommodate more dead people .

After it was emptied, traces of blood remained on the truck.

At the site of the house destroyed by the Israeli raid, Yousef Al-Tatabibi, from the Nuseirat camp, was continuing to search for victims among the rubble spread over a wide area .

He told Agence France-Presse, “We are looking for bodies, and as you can see we are working with our hands,” adding, pointing to a white bag, “These are body parts that we collected from this house, which had four floors. In the lower two floors there are more bodies that we cannot take out. We have no equipment, no bulldozers, nothing… We work with our hands.”

Local sources reported that the Israeli occupation launched more than 60 raids on Friday night and Saturday morning, targeting more than 12 multi-level houses in a complete murder that consolidates genocide against civilians, children and women.

In the city of Rafah, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, an Israeli raid targeted the house of the muezzin (prayer leader) of the Khirbet Al-Adas neighborhood mosque, Issam Dhuhair, along with his two sons while they were eating Suhoor breakfast.

Their relative and neighbor, Mahmoud Dhahir, 41 years old, told AFP, “They bombed the house of Hajj Issam Dhahir, the muezzin of the Hamza Mosque in the neighborhood, and killed him and his two sons, Mohammad and Basil, and all members of the family were injured as a result of the rubble falling on them.”

He added: “Hajj Issam is 60 years old. He had called the first call to prayer for suhoor and went to his house next to the mosque to eat suhoor with his family. They bombed the house while he was eating with them.”

He continued in a sad voice, “He was a good man. He would wake people up for suhoor and call to prayer for sunset at the iftar prayer. The Israelis do not need a reason to kill innocent civilians. It is only a desire for revenge and killing in this holy month.”

He asked, “Where is the world and where are human rights?”

Medical sources announced today, Saturday, that the death toll in the Gaza Strip had risen to 31,553 martyrs, the majority of whom were children and women, since the start of the Israeli occupation aggression on the seventh of last October.

The same sources added that the death toll has risen to 73,546 since the start of the aggression, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble, and ambulance and rescue crews cannot reach them.

In the past 24 hours, Israeli occupation forces committed 7 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip.

#فيديو pic.twitter.com/PhwuGmvDC7

— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) March 17, 2024

Al Jazeera reported that aid trucks arrived in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time in 4 months. UNRWA said it was able to get trucks loaded with flower to the Kuwaiti roundabout in central Gaza City and to Salah al-Din Street in the northern Gaza Strip.