By Moahmmed Majed
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - A Palestinian infant and her mother were killed and several other people injured by Israeli artillery shelling that targeted their home in the central Gaza Strip.
“Medical teams received the bodies of the two martyrs, a baby and her mother, who were martyred as a result of Israeli shelling in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip,” a medical source at Al-Awda Hospital told Anadolu.
Inside the hospital, the grieving father was seen mourning his daughter and wife, lying on the floor, with his cries echoing around the room, saying: "They’re civilians. What did they ever do to anyone?"
"When I saw the shells falling on my house, I went to find my wife torn apart and my 8-month-old daughter in the street. She had fallen from the third floor due to the shelling,” the father told Anadolu.
"My daughter was born during the war. I never got to rejoice in her."
He added that “the house was sheltering displaced people, and I don’t know what happened to them due to the shelling.”
Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip launched following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The onslaught has resulted in over 40,300 Palestinian deaths, mostly women and children, and over 93,000 injuries, according to local health authorities.
An ongoing blockade of Gaza has led to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, leaving much of the region in ruins.
Israel faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered a halt to military operations in the southern city of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians had sought refuge before the area was invaded on May 6.
*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala