Mother and four children among latest Gaza death toll 510

Date: 04 / 01 / 2009  Time:  09:44
Gaza – Ma’an –

A mother and her four children became are among the most recent victims of an ongoing Israeli terrorist air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the death toll 40 (47 later) since the ground invasion began on Saturday night.

At least 510 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began intense airstrikes on 27 December. Gaza medical officials put the number of wounded at 2,250 over nine days.


Palestinian medical officials in Gaza said that the five members of the Baker family were blown to pieces when Israeli warplanes targeted their home in the At-Toufah neighborhood of Gaza City.

Medics also said that two of the children were one and two years old respectively. The ages of the other two were not determined.

Separately, an airstrike near a mosque in Jabaliya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, has killed five Palestinians.

Four other children were killed in the town of Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip, in a series of airstrikes during which ten civilians were killed and 30 injured. Earlier on Saturday, three children were killed in an airstrike in the city of Rafah, in the south that targeted a Palestinian fighter.

Tank fire killed at least eighteen Palestinians on Sunday, including 14 in Beit Lahiya and four in Beit Hanoun.

The Israeli occupation terrorist forces escalated shelling in the Gaza Strip in recent hours, killing a number of Palestinians as resistance fighters continue to confront Israeli tanks and ground troops that entered the Strip from four points.

Ma’an’s journalists in Gaza have confirmed that Israeli forces killed a senior leader of one armed group, the National Resistance Brigades, the military arm of the leftist Democratic Front. The leader Muhmmed Barbakh was killed along with his father, two brothers, and his nephew in the Al-Nahdah neighborhood of the city of Rafah.

Separately at least five Palestinians were killed and forty others injured when a local market in the western section of Gaza City.

Explosions are being heard across the Gaza Strip, and fierce fighting has been reported between Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, and Israeli soldiers. The group reported capturing two Israeli soldiers around eleven in the morning Sunday, though the capture has been denied by Israeli sources.

Sunday’s developments are as follows:

5:00pmAn airstrike killed five Palestinians in Jabaliya.

4:45pmAn airstrike in At-Toufah, in Gaza City killed mother and four children.

4:00pmFour children are among 10 killed in airstrikes in Beit Layhia.

12:15pm Israeli artillery hit a market area killing at least five civilians and injuring more than 40.

11:45am Israeli missiles targeted the Palestinian Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs in Gaza City, injuring several passersby.

11:30am Israeli warplanes fired missiles at Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Ambulances were seen speeding up towards the area.

11:15am An Israeli reconnaissance plane fired a missile at the Rafah home of DFLP leader Muhammed Abed Barbakh, killing him and four members of his family including his father Abed, his two brothers Mahdi and Yousuf, his nephew Musa Yousuf.

11:00am Al-Nassar Salahuddin activist dies of wounds in Saudi Arabia hospital

Tanks advance from four points

The Israeli occupation terrorist forces breached Gaza borders at ten Saturday evening and have been advancing ever since. Palestinian fighters clashed with the advancing army, reportedly killing 30 Israeli soldiers.

East of Gaza City tanks entered Gaza through the Nahal Oz and Karni crossing points, they advanced and headed south of Gaza City and are currently stationed at what used to be an Israeli settlement called Netsarim. Tank fire killed three in the Ashuja’yya neighborhood.

In Beit Hanoun in the north eastern Gaza Strip, tanks penetrated hundreds of meters closing the main road between Beit Hanoun and Gaza City, though they have not entered the city. Four Palestinians were killed in Beit Hanoun.

From the northwest witnesses said the Israeli occupation terrorist forces reached the American school north of Beit Lahiya. Forces killed two in Beit Lahiya. The school was leveled on Saturday by and Israeli airstrike.

From the south tanks entered near the destroyed Yasser Arafat Airport east of the city of Rafah amid heavy artillery fire, killing one Palestinian fighter and injuring several others.

Just before the ground invasion Israeli warplanes bombarded more than 45 targets throughout the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claimed the targets were ammunition caches and groups of Palestinian fighters, although the bombing destroyed a school, apartment buildings,

Another air raid was also in the southern Strip near Khan Younis. The strike killed Hamas activist Muhammad Al-Heila and injured an another who could not be identified.



***Updated 18:44 Gaza time