An Israeli raid, in the city of Rafah, on Saturday, ended the joy of a Palestinian woman with her twins, whom she gave birth to after three rounds of in vitro fertilization, which took 10 years, according to “Associated Press“.
The Israeli raid hit Rania Abu Anza’s family home late on Saturday, killing her five-month-old twins, Wissam and Naeem, and her husband, along with 11 other relatives.
The Israeli raid left nine more people missing under the rubble, according to survivors and local health officials.
Rania Abu Anza woke up at approximately 10 p.m. to breastfeed her child, Naeem, and then placed him on one arm, and placed her child, Wissam, on her other arm, while her husband slept next to them, before the explosion occurred an hour and a half after that time.
Abu Anza said on Sunday, as she cried and placed her child’s mattress on her chest: “They all died, and their father took them and left me behind.”
According to the agency, Israeli air strikes regularly hit the crowded homes of families in Rafah, which Israel declared a safe zone last October, “but has now become the next target of its ground attack.”
The strikes often come without warning, usually in the middle of the night, according to the Associated Press.
Israel says it is trying to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas, “because it deploys fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in densely populated residential areas.”
The Israeli army rarely comments on individual strikes that often kill women and children. He did not immediately comment on this strike, according to the agency.
Doctor Marwan Al-Hams, director of the hospital to which the bodies were transferred, said, “Among the 14 dead in Abu Anza’s house, there are six children and four women.”
He pointed out that “Rania lost, in addition to her husband and children, her sister, her nephew, her pregnant cousin, and other relatives.”
Farouk Abu Anza, a relative of Rania, said, “About 35 civilians, most of them children, were residing in the house, some of whom were displaced from other areas.”
Rania and her husband, Wissam, spent a decade to have a child, and two rounds of artificial insemination failed, but after the third round early last year, Rania learned that she was pregnant, and she gave birth to twins on October 13.
She added that her husband, Wissam, who works as a day laborer, was so proud that he insisted on naming his baby girl after him.
She said: “I couldn’t get enough of them… I swear I couldn’t get enough of them.”
Last October 7, militants led by Hamas stormed southern Israel in a surprise attack, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 hostage, including children and newborns, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel responded with a retaliatory campaign that killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
About 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, while a quarter of the population faces the specter of famine.
The ministry said last month that more than 12,300 Palestinian children were killed in the war, or about 43% of the total death toll. The Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its statistics.
Humanitarian workers say, “The war has turned life for the children who survived into hell, as some of them in northern Gaza are out of care.”
“The feeling of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors when they realize that life-saving aid is out of reach is unbearable,” UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East, Adele Khader, said in a statement on Sunday.
“But what is worse is the cries of pain of these children who are slowly dying under the eyes of the world,” she added.
Until Saturday, the Abu Anza family had been relatively lucky, as Rafah had been spared the massive destruction inflicted on northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Yunis.
But Israel said that “the Rafah crossing will be next, and approximately 1.5 million people who took refuge there will be transferred, without specifying their whereabouts.”
Rania said: “We have no rights. I lost the people dearest to me, and I do not want to live here, and I want to leave this country, because I am tired of this war.”
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