Israeli strike kills 12 members of Gaza family as offensive widens
An Israeli air strike on Khan Younis has killed at least 12 displaced Palestinians from the same family, relatives told Middle East Eye, as Israel expanded its offensive on Wednesday to seize "large areas" of Gaza.
“They were hanging out at our place, and wanted to wish their mother a happy Eid,” Basma al-Qaoud, a relative of the victims, told MEE.
“They left, and an hour or two later, we receive a call telling us the Bari family home was bombed, which was the home they were renting.”
The Qaoud family had survived over a year of Israeli attacks on Gaza, where they were displaced on several occasions.
“We have constantly been humiliated,” Basma said. “We went from Rafah to Deir al-Balah, and [my relatives] came with us. We then went from Deir al-Balah to Khan Younis, from Khan Younis back to Rafah and now we have left Rafah again.”
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The Bari family, who lived on the floor below the Qaouds, lost two people to the strike.
More than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since Israel resumed its war on the enclave on 18 March, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Over 50,400 Palestinians have been killed in the war since October 2023.
Israel says it is pursuing Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), but Palestinians say civilians are being deliberately targeted.
“Those people have nothing to do with Hamas, Fatah, PIJ or anything of that kind,” Basma said.
“Yasser was a teacher, Abboud worked in cosmetics, Ismail worked in the old Palestinian Authority anyway. His children are all civilians. One of them was a bride preparing herself for her wedding, and the other was a groom engaged to a woman in Egypt. What else am I supposed to say? Another of his children was married and recently got pregnant.”
‘Their joys were consecutive’
Two of the victims were three-month-old girls. Another child was three years old. Others were recently engaged or married.
Ilham, another relative, said despite the horrors of war, the family had received a succession of good news recently.
“One of them was pregnant, one was engaged to a man, another was engaged to my sister, one was married, another recently married. One after the other,” she said, her face filled with tears.
'Those people have nothing to do with Hamas, Fatah, PIJ or anything of that kind'
- Basma al-Qaoud
“Their joys were all consecutive,” she added. “[Now] they are all gone together.”
Mostafa al-Jamal, the fiance of Tasnim, one of the victims, said he was excited to start a life with her when the war initially seemed over as a ceasefire was reached in January. Israel unilaterally ended the truce on 18 March.
“My fiancee and I got engaged during the last truce,” he said. “She is studying nursing like me. Our life was very good, with a good relationship. We were planning for a nice future, for our life. We wanted to study and work together.”
However, his dreams were cut short when Israel’s attack killed Tasnim.
“The occupation was an obstacle to everything we wanted to do,” he said.
‘Seizing large areas’
On Wednesday morning, Israel announced it would expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, aiming to take “large areas” of the Palestinian enclave.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said the offensive was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel”.
The Israeli government is also continuing its push for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
On Tuesday, the interior ministry claimed that hundreds of Gaza residents, accompanied by German diplomats, were flown from southern Israel to Leipzig.
However, the German government quickly rejected this claim. “This is wrong,” the German foreign ministry said on X in response to a post about the Israeli statement.
In Jabalia, northern Gaza, an Isreli strike on a UN clinic sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least 22 people.
Hamas described it as “a continuation of genocide and a reflection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s disregard for international laws and humanitarian norms”.
The Palestinian armed group also rejected Israeli claims that the clinic was being used as a headquarters for its Jabalia Battalion, dismissing the allegations as “blatant fabrications aimed at justifying this heinous crime”.
Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Despite this, he is expected in Hungary on Wednesday for an official visit.
Hungary, a founding member of the ICC, is supposed to arrest the Israeli premier should he land in its territory, but its Prime Minister Viktor Orban vowed to disregard the arrest warrant.
Israeli and Hungarian media reported that Hungary plans to declare its withdrawal from the ICC during Netanyahu’s four-day trip.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
