Hundreds of Palestinian Civilians Killed as Israel Steps Up Attacks on Gaza Strip
HAVANA TIMES – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to step up attacks on the Gaza Strip after a weekend of violence that left hundreds of Palestinians dead. On Friday, 90 people were killed when Israel bombed two homes in Gaza City. Seventy-six of the dead were members of one family. They include Issam al-Mughrabi, who worked as a United Nations Development Program official for three decades. He was killed along with his wife and five of their children. On Sunday, at least 106 Palestinians were killed in a single Israeli airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. This is Ibrahim Youssef, a camp resident who searched for his wife and four children after the attack buried them under the rubble.
Ibrahim Mohammed Al-Haj Youssef: “My wife and children are still trapped inside. I only managed to uncover my eldest son Muhammad. How will I bury them while they remain under the rubble? How can I locate and lay them to rest? How will I confirm that my children are here? Where did they go, and what happened to them? What fault did they have? Why did this happen to them? It’s not their fault. The world watches as we die and are being slaughtered.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society says an Israeli artillery attack on its headquarters in Khan Younis left several people injured. Meanwhile, human rights groups are demanding an investigation after video reportedly taken by an Israeli photojournalist appeared to show hundreds of Palestinians civilians, including children, held by Israeli soldiers in a Gaza stadium at gunpoint, stripped to their underwear, bound, and forced to sit on open ground.