Israel kills dozens in Gaza, Hamas vows revenge
Middle East Desk Report

BEIT HANOUN (Gaza Strip)—Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal says that a truce with Israel is finished and is appealing to all Palestinian factions to resume attacks. Israeli tank shells ripped through a residential neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip early Wednesday, killing at least 18 members of an extended family, including eight children, and wounding dozens of others, Palestinian health officials said.
“There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those vicitms,” Mashaal said. The military wing of the Palestinians’ ruling group called on Muslims around the world to attack U.S. targets, a call disavowed by the Hamas-led Palestinian government. 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. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh suspended talks on forming a more moderate government with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and both men declared a three-day mourning period. Abbas said the negotiations must continue.
Russia and the European Union condemned the attack. The tank shells landed around a compound of four apartment buildings in Beit Hanoun, the northern border town that has been the latest focus of the Israeli offensive. Gaping holes were torn into the structures, owned by four brothers from the al-Athamna family who lived alongside each other. Blood pooled in front of the houses.
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. A military spokeswoman said artillery rounds had been fired at Palestinian rocket-launching sites, but far from the apartment compound.
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.”