Child casualties mount in Gaza

2009-01-02 12:10

Beit Hanoun - Samar Hamdan ran weeping through the street, trying to touch the body of her slain 11-year-old brother during a funeral procession in this northern Gaza town.

Just a day before, 15-year-old Hamdan's two sisters were also buried, victims of the same strike from an Israeli missile.

As Israel steps up its attacks on the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated spots on earth, children are paying the price.

"In this crowded strip, everything is beside everything else," said Karen Abu Zayd, a top UN official in Gaza.

Israel maintains it is only targeting Hamas militants and the rockets they send streaking into southern Israel. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes and many of them have been members of the security forces.

But at least 37 children and 17 women have died so far, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry - numbers that UN officials also believe are correct.

The broad range of Israel's targets - police compounds, fire stations, homes of militants, Hamas-run mosques and university buildings - means most shelling is occurring in residential areas.

Israel says that militants fire rockets from residential areas and schools - aware that the response may cause civilian casualties.

"Hamas uses civilians as human shields," said Israeli military spokesperson Major Avital Leibovich. "The targets we picked are military."

But with some 1.4 million Gazans crammed into a sliver of land 40km long and just five to 12 kilometres wide, military targets and civilians tend to exist side by side.

Israel's strike on Thursday against the home of top Hamas leader Nizar Rayan was a typical case.

The bomb flattened the house and killed the man involved in attacks on Israel - as well as 18 other people, including nine of his children, aged 2 to 19, and all four of his wives. Television footage showed medics clutching the bodies of lifeless children dug out of the rubble the house and neighbouring buildings.

Hamas officials said Rayan refused to leave his home, although he knew he was a likely target - effectively risking civilians living nearby.

For the Hamdan children, however, the attack was all the more random. The three children, Haya, 12, Lama, four and Ismail, 11, were dumping garbage in an empty field near their home on Tuesday morning, not knowing that moments before Gaza militants nearby had just fired rockets at Israel.

An Israeli warship fired a missile at the site. The two girls were killed instantly, while Ismail lingered on until Wednesday.

At his funeral, his sister Samar tried to follow the flag-wrapped body of her brother, until the mourners stopped and took her home to her devastated mother. "My children are dead, why am I alive?" she wailed.

- AP