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Palestinians remove the rubble from a home targeted in the latest Israeli airstrikes in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip November 16, 2012. Photo by AFP

Video of the severely burnt body of the Infant Omar Al-Mash-Harawi (Warning; Very Graphic Video)


In three days of fighting, 10 Palestinian civilians have been killed, among them six children. Over 250 civilians have been wounded.
By Amira Hass for Haaretz

Palestinians in the northern and eastern Gaza Strip began leaving their homes Friday due to the heavy air attacks on the third day of Israel's Gaza offensive. Area residents say bombardments from the land and sea as well are carrying on with little letup as shells fall a few meters away and shake the ground and walls.

Among the people who fled are members of the Samouni family, who live east of Gaza's Zeitoun area. During Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008-09, 21 members of the Samouni family were killed when the commander of the Givati Brigade, Ilan Malka, ordered the bombing of a building. Based on photos from a pilotless plane, Malka had concluded that the building was sheltering armed Palestinians.

A mother in the Samouni family says she and her children are now living the combined traumas of 2009 and 2012.

As of this afternoon, the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense stood at 10, six of them children, says the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The total number of Palestinians killed since the start of the offensive is 19. Almost all the wounded are civilians – 253 out of 257, including 62 children and 42 women. More casualties have been reported since Friday afternoon, but independent Palestinian sources in the Strip have not yet confirmed their identities.

According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, two children were killed on Thursday night in the town of Beit Hanun in northern Gaza. They died in their home near a cultivated area, where a missile fell.

The children are Udai Nasser, 15, and Fares el-Basiyuni, 8. Earlier Thursday evening, in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, Marwan al-Komsan, 52, a teacher employed by the United Nations refugee agency, was killed while visiting his brother. A mortar shell or explosive fell in a field near the brother’s home, seriously injuring the brother, who is 72.

In Zeitoun, a 10-month-old girl, Hanan Tafesh, died Thursday night of head injuries sustained in a bombing the day before. Her mother and two others were wounded.

Camel Makat, 23, died Friday morning of a heart attack after a fighter jet bombed a field near his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northwestern Gaza City. On Friday evening 2-year-old Walid al-Abdullah died of his injuries sustained the day before in a strike on the village of al-Kara, east of Khan Yunis.

In Israeli strikes on Wednesday on Zeitoun, a 3-year-old girl, Ranin Arafat, was killed along with an 11-month-old boy, Amar Masharawi, and a pregnant 19-year-old woman, Hiba Masharawi-Turk. Also on Wednesday, a 61-year-old man, Mahmoud Hmad, was killed in a field in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The number of buildings directly or indirectly damaged in the bombings is growing. According to researchers from Gaza’s Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, as of Friday afternoon, 223 buildings had been damaged, among them nine completely destroyed, including the Interior Ministry offices in southern Gaza City's Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. But about 80 percent of the documents and data have electronic backups, ministry officials say.

Another government building was destroyed near the Gaza home of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

On Wednesday night, Rashid Abu-Shabak's villa was bombed. Abu-Shabak, a Fatah member and former commander of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force, now lives in Egypt; his home was among those of Fatah members expropriated by Hamas. Based on the bombing, which damaged about 20 other houses in Tel al-Hawa, weapons must have been stored in the house, Gaza sources say.

Nearby structures were damaged in all neighborhoods where buildings or open areas were bombed. Damage included smashed widows and broken water tanks. Water supplies have been further compromised by frequent electricity outages throughout Gaza. According to the Al-Mezan Center, five mosques and 11 schools have been damaged, each of which holds classes in two shifts daily.

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30 Palestinians killed Since Wednesday

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that Ayman Salim, died of serious injuries suffered on Thursday by Israeli military shells targeting Gaza. The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli shells since Wednesday arrived to 30, including several children, infants women and elderly.

On Friday, Israeli soldiers bombarded different areas in the Gaza Strip killing four Palestinians, including Ahmad Abu Jalal, 43, a leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, his brother Majd, 33, Ziad Farhan Abu Jalal, 23, and Hasan Salem Al-Halee’, 27.

One resident, identified as Khaled Khalil Ash-Sha’er, 28, was also killed after the army fired a missile at his motorcycle, three Palestinian youths were injured in the attack, two seriously.

The Maan News Agency reported that the army also fired a missile at residents in Al-Maghazi refugee camp, in central Gaza, wounding several residents.

On Friday evening, the army bombarded several areas in the coastal region leading to excessive damage, while three residents were injured when the army fired missiles into the home of Mohammad Abu Shammala, a leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

The army even bombarded a chicken farm in Ar-Ranna area-Ranna area in Khan Younis, wounding two residents.

A Palestinian child was injured when the army bombarded Al-Karama residential towers, north of Gaza, and was moved to a local hospital.

A woman and a young man were injured Friday in an Israeli bombardment in the Az-Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza city.

Israeli soldiers also bombarded Bader Base, a training center for the Al-Qassam Brigades, west of Gaza city. Another Qassam center was bombarded in Rafah.

Dozens of homes were hit by Israeli missiles of Rafah, Gaza city, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and several areas in the coastal region, while one Palestinian was killed and four others were injured when the army fired a missile into the a street in Az-Zeitoun in Gaza city.

An Israeli drone fired a missile at a motorcycle driver near the Al-Quds Open University wounding one resident, another missile exploded near a gas station in the area.

Six more Palestinians were injured in an Israeli air strike targeting Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza.

Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the Emergency Unit in Gaza, reported that the Israeli escalation that started Wednesday led, so far, to the death of 30 Palestinians, including several children and women, while at least 255 Palestinians have been injured, 30 seriously. 100 children, women and elderly are among the wounded.

Maan reported that Dr. Samir Al-Kahloot, working at the Intensive care Unit in Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, said that most of the injured residents suffered head or chest injuries, adding that the majority of the wounded are children and women.

Names of the Palestinians killed by Israeli shells;

1. Ahmad Al-Ja’bary, leader of Hamas’ Military Wing.
2. Mohammad Al-Hamss.
3. Ranan Arafat, 3 years old.
4. Omar Al-Mash-Harawi, 10 months.
5. Issam Abu Al-Ma’za.
6. Mohammad Al-Kaseeh.
7. Hiba Al-Mash-Harawi, 19 years old and six months pregnant.
8. Mohammad Abu Sawaween, elderly.
9. Habes Masmas.
10. Wael Al-Ghalbaan.
11. Hisham Al-Ghalbaan.
12. Rani Hammad (his wife gave birth to a boy shortly after he was killed)
13. Khaled Abu An-Nassr.
14. Marwan Abu Al-Qomsaan, elderly.
15. Waleed Al-Abadla, 4 years old.
16. Haneen Tafesh, 10 months old.
17. Odai Jamal Nasser, 16 years old.
18. Fares Al-Basyouni, 9 years old.
19. Mohammad Eyad Sa’dallah, 4 years old.
20. Tahrir Suleiman.
21. Ayman Al-Abed Abu Warda.
22. Ismail Qandeel.
23. Younis Kamal Tafesh.
24. Mohammad Salman.
25. Amjad Abu Jalal.
26. Ziad Abu Jalal.
27. Ahmad Abu Jalal.
28. Hasan Al Hailma’.
29. Khaled Ash-Sha’er.
30. Ayman Salim.

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