Israel Kills 18 members of one family in Gaza

Imagine this family waking up on the sound of a distant shell explosion, a familiar sound in their neighborhood, so they try to go back to sleep when another shell explodes near their house prompting the mother to get everybody out of the house……



Asma al-Athamna, 14, said her family was awakened early Wednesday by the sound of an explosion and her mother quickly ordered everyone out of the house.
“She was saying, ’There is shelling,”’ Asma recalled.
As the family exited their home, another shell landed, killing the girl’s mother, older sister and brother-in-law.
“They were killed when they came out of our house into the corridor. A tank shell killed them. I was behind them and I was wounded,” the weeping girl said from her hospital bed.
A woman’s headscarf, children’s boots and slippers, and a pair of jeans - all burnt - were strewn outside the houses.
Khaled Radi, a health ministry official, said all the dead belonged to the same family. More than 50 people were wounded, 14 of them seriously, Radi said.



Her name is Asma, she's 14 from Gaza, Palestine and she just lost 18 members of her family today, including her mother and her older sister!!! Asma did not choose her parents, her country and cannot make yet any decision regarding her life. Who should we blame???



IDF is denying
A military spokeswoman said artillery rounds had been fired at Palestinian rocket-launching sites, but far from the apartment compound.

But the Israeli government expresses regret but feel pressed to continue "military operations" on similar houses
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret over the deaths and, along with Defense Minister Amir Peretz, offered “urgent humanitarian aid” to the Palestinian Authority and immediate medical treatment to the wounded.
Israel halted artillery attacks in Gaza while it investigated the incident, but said it would press forward with operations meant to halt Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli communities.

The palestinian government responsible for the safety of Asma, her family and all citizens issued a statement:

Abbas warned that Israel would have to “shoulder all the consequences for these crimes,” and Haniyeh said the Palestinians reserved the right to “self-defense.”

Hamas being the major party in the government had also to issue a statement:
“The truce (with Israel) ended at the end of 2005,” Mashaal told a news conference in the Syrian capital. “The armed struggle is free to resume, and the resistance is dictated by local circumstances.”

“America is offering political, financial and logistic cover for the Zionist occupation crimes, and it is responsible for the Beit Hanoun massacre. Therefore, the people and the nation all over the globe are required to teach the American enemy tough lessons,”



Unfortunately, for Asma this won't be the end of her tragedy, and we won't have time to imagine what her life would be now, because this is the start of a cycle of violence where Asma's family members are just statistics

The killing of Palestinian civilians in the past has often preceded a sharp escalation of violence. A series of deadly incidents last summer, including a June 9 explosion on a Gaza beach that killed eight civilians, was followed by the capture of an Israeli soldier and an ensuing Israeli invasion of Gaza.

It's been a long time since I gave up thinking of how this conflict would end. There is so much hate involving that it would take a miracle to achieve peace in this part of the world. It is just hurting to see a child go through this knowing that soon another child on the other side will go the same experience. We will say they deserve it, and they would say we deserve it. None of us is right when children are dying. I will feel the same way is this child was Israeli. I think with age and with experience of parenting, I learned to see things from a different perspective, a more human one. I understand the reactions of some of us who say "they have what they deserve", I used to think like that, not anymore. Now when I hear someone glorifying violence acts, Israelis or Palestinians, it makes me smile unless there are children involved.

I am sure, I am able to kill someone to protect my child in a direct physical confrontation, I see that as a duty, but I will never kill for revenge or as preventive measure. Instead, I will spend all the time I have left and all the resources I have, to get whoever did this crime in front of a court of law. But that's me and whoever read my posts and my comments would know by now that I am an idealist, yet I understand realism and abide by it.

To finish on a hopeful image that shows that idealists exist on both sides.