Four children killed in Israeli attack

Published on Monday 28 April 2008 22:24

A PALESTINIAN mother and her four children were killed while eating breakfast yesterday in Gaza when Israeli missiles struck near the door of their house, residents said.

The Israeli army said it was firing on two armed Palestinians with large bags on their backs and that the civilians – Meyasir Abu Metiq, 40, and her children, aged between 18 months and five – were killed because bombs inside these bags caused a large explosion.

But the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights claimed that an Israeli aircraft fired a missile that fell ten meters from the house, seriously injuring a Palestinian fighter. Less than a minute later, two missiles were fired at the same area, killing another resistance member. Shrapnel spread inside the house, killing the four children and fatally wounding the mother.

"They have wiped out my family," Ahmed Abu Metiq told reporters, weeping as the bodies were prepared for burial. The deaths came during an Israeli incursion in which an estimated 20 armoured vehicles, backed by aircraft, pushed into the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun.

The army said the incursion was aimed at pushing militant fighters further away from the border fence between Gaza and Israel and reducing rocket and mortar fire.

It came as Egypt was trying to hammer out a ceasefire deal including Hamas and all other militant groups that would put an end to Palestinian rocket and border crossing attacks and Israeli army operations.

"This massacre is clear proof the occupation does not want a calming," said Abu Mujahid, of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. "All must await the response of the resistance to the crimes."

Eighteen rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel yesterday, the army said, with no injuries reported.