BEIT HANUN — Israeli occupation forces bombarded Wednesday, November 8, houses in the battered northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, killing nineteen Palestinians, including seven children and four women, in their sleep.
"Israeli fire killed 18 people, including women and children," said Khaled Radi, a Palestinian health ministry spokesman, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Less than an hour, another Palestinian was confirmed dead in the bloody Israeli onslaught.
Witnesses said Israeli shells struck at least seven houses in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, killing people as they slept.
Thirteen members of one family were killed in the Israeli attack, witnesses said.
"It is the saddest scene and images I have ever seen. We saw legs, we saw heads, we saw hands scattered in the street," 22-year-old Attaf Hamad, a witness, told Reuters.
Pools of blood lay in the streets of Beit Hanoun as pieces of flesh and the small sandals of children were strewn about.
At least 40 people had been wounded in the Israeli onslaught, the health ministry said.
The Israeli government not only said the long-running onslaught would continue but also authorized security services to be ready to launch a large operation.
The ongoing Gaza offensive came as Israeli troops shot five Palestinians dead in the West Bank in another raid near Jenin, Palestinian security sources said.
More than 290 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched a wide-scale offensive in Gaza on the pretext of seeking the release of a soldier captured by Palestinian resistance groups to swap for Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
UN special envoy for human rights, John Dugard, has accused Israel of "collective punishment" of the Palestinians.
The latest deaths bring to 5,554 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada against the Israeli occupation in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
2006-11-10 12:08:13
·
answer #2
·
answered by Anonymous
·
1⤊
2⤋