Gazan father bids farewell to dead children from his hospital bed

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Mahmoud Zoghroub says farewell to his dead children, 17-day-old daughter Aisha and 2-year-old son Ahmed, from his hospital bed.

Wounded in the airstrike that killed his children, Zoghroub grimaced with effort as he pulled himself up to cradle Ahmed, wrapped in a white burial shroud. Zoghroub then wept and fell back again. Aisha, also bundled in white cloth, was placed next to him on his other side. At one point he tapped his heart, seemingly too exhausted to speak.

Aisha’s grandmother, Suzan, said the infant was born on December 2.

The extended family was asleep when an Israeli airstrike hit their apartment building before dawn Tuesday, Suzan Zoghroub says. She says two of her sons had apartments on higher floors, but the family stayed together on the ground floor amid fears of airstrikes.

In all, 27 people were killed in the strike attributed to Israel, hospital officials claim. Suzan Zoghroub says many were members of her extended family.

“They removed us from under the rubble and brought us here,” she says from the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah.

The IDF does not generally comment on individual strikes but insists that it doesn’t target civilians.