Israeli forces shelled a house in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least seven Palestinians including four children and their mother, officials in Hamas said. The Palestinian health ministry said several more people were wounded Monday by shells fired from an Israeli tank. The incident took place in Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza town.
Witnesses said Israel shelled the house of Abu Muaitek family completely destroying it and killing the mother and her four children Musab, 1, Hana, 3, Saleh, 4, and Rudaina, 6. They said that the shelling also killed the 17-year-old boy Ayub Attalla and Ibrahim Hajuj of the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement.
According to Reuters, locals said an Israeli projectile smashed through the ceiling of a one-storey house where the family was having breakfast. The children's mother was critically wounded but later died of her wounds.
"The continued Zionist massacres are new proof that the Occupation (Israel) is not interested in calm, and therefore Palestinian armed wings should continue to respond to the aggression by all possible means," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed troops were operating in Beit Hanoun. Hamas said one of its snipers shot an Israeli soldier in Beit Hanoun. The Israeli spokeswoman said a soldier was slightly wounded by gunfire before the air force strikes.
The spokeswoman said the operation was launched to "ensure that rocket crews, snipers and tunnel diggers are kept away from the border fence". Palestinians fired three rockets from Gaza into Israel on Monday, causing no damage, she said.
Hamas reaction
Ismail Haniyeh, the premier of the Gaza Strip, charged that Monday's Israeli crime reflected the true image of "this criminal occupier and its constant attempts to sabotage any regional or international efforts to end the (IOF) siege and aggression."
He affirmed that such pogrom would never sway the Palestinian people away from insistence on liberation and full rights.
For his part, Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said that the Israeli troops resort to murdering civilians every time they fail in confronting Palestinian resistance fighters. He said that the new massacre directs a blow to all attempts to secure calm and stability in the region and thus the Palestinian resistance factions should "painfully strike the enemy everywhere to let it pay the price for its crimes and foolishness".
"Israeli soldiers and settlers should never be allowed to live in peace and tranquility while our children and our people are suffering amidst bloodshed," he elaborated.
