Three Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

***Warning the following contains graphic content***

The scene at the family home of the Ntheir family in east Gaza is horrible, with the remnants of the three children killed by the Israeli army yesterday evening in artillery shelling covering the floor and discolouring the walls.

A number of family members occupy themselves by collecting the remains of the three children, which litter the corridors of the modest home, located in a neighbourhood in the east of Gaza City.

Dr Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said that the three children of the Ntheir family arrived at Al-Shifa Hospital yesterday evening in tatters after their home was bombed by Israeli forces.

The dead children are: Abed Ali Ntheir, 12, Mohammad Shadi Ntheir, 15, and Mohammad Salem Ntheir, 4.

Mohammed Ntheir, a family member, said in an interview with an Anadolu correspondent: “The Israeli army shells rained on the region, so a large number of family members gathered in the house, and we sat under the staircase to shelter ourselves from the rockets.

“Suddenly a shell hit the house, and there was darkness, and after that we brought a flashlight, we were horrified by the deaths of three children of the family. They are my brother, my nephew and my cousin. We found them in tatters…they were headless.

“What is the crime committed by these children? We were safe in our house, why do they kill us?”

Um Mohammed, one of the women of the family said: “It was a terrifying night, the shells hit our house and we went out onto the streets carrying our children not knowing where to go.”

She continued: “I cannot imagine the horror that has been inflicted on our children. My daughter has become sick from the fear and I don’t know what to do to help her or where to take her. I don’t have anything but a compress to treat her fever.

“The girls were trembling with fear and the men were looking at their girls unable to help them.”

Ashraf Al-Qudra, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza said: “The Israeli military raids by air and ground are continuous in different parts of the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli military operation, and have caused the deaths of 264 civilians, injuring about 1,990, some seriously.”

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip published a preliminary list revealing the identities of the dead, which shows that among the dead are 58 children and 27 women.

On July 7, the Israeli Air Force waged intensive raids on the Gaza Strip; in a military operation it has calls “Operation Protective Edge”.

The Israeli army has announced that it began a ground operation against the Gaza Strip yesterday evening in order to undergo what it said was an operation to hit the “terrorist” tunnels that come out of the Gaza Strip and enter Israeli territory.

The violent raids on the Gaza Strip have destroyed 1,255 residential units entirely, and 14,500 have been partially damaged, according to preliminary statistics of the Ministry of Public Works in the Palestinian government.