Dozens of relatives wept and recited verses from the Quran at a Gaza Strip hospital yesterday before burying some of the 33 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a post office where they had been sheltering.
Medics said families displaced by the 14-month-old conflict had sought refuge in the postal facility in Nuseirat camp. The attack in the early hours yesterday damaged several houses nearby.
Some of the bodies gathered at Al Awda Hospital in Nuseirat were wrapped in white shrouds and others in blankets from home. The families accompanied them on a walk to their graves.
“They have killed the hope and optimism,” said Suheil Mattar, whose grandchildren and daughter-in-law were killed.
“Every time things happen and we say there will be a truce and we will rest... After that, they change their minds, they change their minds, we don’t know why,” Mattar said.
Months of ceasefire efforts by Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the US, have failed to conclude a deal between the two warring sides.
Nuseirat is one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic camps originally for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war around the establishment of Israel. Today, it is part of a dense urban area crowded with displaced people from throughout the enclave.
Yesterday, Palestinian health officials said at least 12 people were killed in separate Israeli air strikes across the enclave, including three in a tent housing a displaced family in Khan Younis and a local journalist in Gaza City.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in Tel Aviv on Thursday he believed a deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release may be close as Israel had signalled it was ready and there were signs of movement from Hamas.
&uuid=(email))