GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s Tabatibi family is in mourning for the second time in less than a month, after separate Israeli bombardments on buildings they were sheltering in killed more than 60 of their kin. The latest strike occurred in the early hours of Friday in Gaza City’s densely populated Daraj neighbourhood, killing at least 25 members of the family, a relative said.
In a narrow street, the six-storey building where the Tabatibi family had been staying was still standing on Friday, balconies barely hanging to its facade, the ground floor charred and its inside strewn with rubble. “We didn’t hear a missile come down or anything, we were all asleep,” Khaled al-Tabatibi, a surviving member of the family, said. “Our house, my sisters, their children, their daughters, all of them are martyred, all of them are in pieces,” he said through tears.
The Tabatibi family had already been in mourning.
On March 15, the family had gathered in central Gaza to eat together during the first Friday night of Ramadan, a reunion that soon turned into a bloodbath. An air strike hit the building where they were staying as women prepared the pre-fasting meal, killing 36 members of the family, witnesses said at the time.