An Israeli raid targeted Rania Abu Anza's family home in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, late Saturday, killing her two children, her husband, and 11 other relatives, and leaving 9 others missing under the rubble, according to survivors and local health officials.
The Associated Press quoted Rania as saying that she had woken up at ten to breastfeed her son Naeem, then went back to sleep with him on one arm and her daughter Wissam on the other arm, while her husband was sleeping next to them.
The explosion occurred an hour and a half later, causing the house to collapse.
She said, on Saturday, as she sobbed and hugged the baby blanket to her chest: “I screamed for my children and my husband (…) They were all dead. Their father took them and left me alone.”
She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall, and patted his chest in an attempt to calm down.
Israeli air strikes have routinely targeted crowded family homes since the beginning of the war in Gaza, even in Rafah, which Israel declared a Menna area in October, but which has now become the next target of its devastating ground offensive.
Israel says it is trying to avoid harming civilians and blames the deaths on Hamas, which it claims has deployed fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in densely populated residential areas. But the army rarely comments on individual raids that often kill women and children.
The army did not immediately comment on this raid.
14 dead in the house
Among the 14 dead in Abu Anza's house, there were 6 children and 4 women, according to Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director of the hospital to which the bodies were taken.
Besides her husband and two children, Rania also lost her sister, her cousin, her pregnant cousin, and other relatives.
Farouk Abu Anza, one of her relatives, said that approximately 35 people were residing in the house, some of whom were displaced from other areas.
He added that they are all civilians, most of them children, and that there are no armed men among them.
The dream years
Rania and her husband Wissam, both 29 years old, spent 10 years until she became pregnant with their two children.
Two rounds of IVF failed, but after the third round, she reported that she was pregnant, early last year, and gave birth to the two children on October 13. She said that her husband, a day laborer, was so proud that he insisted on naming the girl after him.
She added: “I couldn't get enough of them. I swear I couldn't get enough of them.”
Less than a week before their birth, Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and capturing 250 others.
Israel responded with one of the bloodiest and most destructive military campaigns in modern history. The war resulted in the deaths of more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
About 80 percent of the Strip's population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, while a quarter of the population faces famine.
The ministry said last month that more than 12,300 Palestinian children and teenagers were killed in the war, representing 43 percent of the deaths.
Women and children together constitute 75 percent of the dead.
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