Torn up body parts: Israeli dawn shelling kills dozens of Palestinians
Israeli fighter jets pounded shelters across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 42 Palestinians within hours, in a deadly morning of strikes.
Displaced people in the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis were amongst those targeted by Israeli attacks.
Bilal Mustafa Ahmad al-Aqad, a witness at the scene, told Middle East Eye that the attacks began around 1am, starting with a strike on a building surrounded by displacement tents.
He said that seven people were killed in one of the attacks, including four children and a woman, while two others were wounded.
"They were just torn-apart body parts," he said, describing how the bodies of several victims were left as "pieces of meat".
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Another witness, Sheikh Jihad Shorab, cried out that most of those killed were women and children.
'Some of them were even wearing their Eid attire... what is the sin of these children?'
- Sheikh Jihad Shorab, witness
"The women and children were just sleeping peacefully; what did they do wrong?" he said.
Shorab noted that four families within the Shorab household had been wiped off the registry in Gaza.
"Despite our martyrs and the destruction we’ve faced, by God's will, our lives will be turned around," Shorab added.
"Without any prior warnings, and as they slept... some of them were even wearing their Eid attire... what is the sin of these children, O Arabs?" he said, questioning the ongoing lack of intervention by Arab nations to stop the Israeli war on Gaza.
Husband mourned
Inas al-Aqad, the wife of Ashraf al-Aqad, who was killed in the attacks, told MEE that she was proud of her husband as she mourned him.
"There's a fire in my heart for him, who will put it out?" she sobbed, recalling how he held her hand and smiled at her in his final moments.
"We were sleeping when a fighter jet came and struck the house next to us," al-Aqad described, adding that fire and shrapnel hit her family's tents, where her five children were asleep.
Her husband, who was sleeping outside the room, was killed by the shrapnel.
"I've only been here for two days, displaced from Rafah... He said he would build us a castle, he turned our tent into a castle. I wish we'd never come here. God have mercy on you," she said, lamenting her husband's loss.
Since the resumption of deadly strikes on Gaza last month, the Israeli army has launched an increasingly brutal bombing campaign, killing more than 1,163 Palestinians in around two weeks.
Over 50,523 Palestinians have been killed in the war since October 2023.
The Israeli army has also issued multiple expulsion orders for tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The United Nations said on 25 March that Israel's forcible displacement orders encompass 15 percent of the Gaza Strip, roughly the same size as Manhattan in New York City.
The UN said earlier that at least 142,000 Palestinians have been displaced since Israel resumed its attacks on Gaza.
"Families are forced to move - again. Resources are running out, and nowhere is safe," the UN said at the time, with more forcible displacement orders issued since then.
middleeasteye.net