Born a few weeks into the Gaza war, infant twins Wesam and Naeem Abu Anza were buried on Sunday, the youngest of 14 members of the same family whom Gaza health authorities say were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah overnight.
Their mother, Rania Abu Anza, held one of the twins, its tiny body wrapped in a white shroud, to her cheek and stroked its head during the funeral on Sunday. A mourner held the second baby close by, pale blue pajamas visible beneath a shroud.
“My heart is gone,” wept Abu Anza, whose husband was also killed, as mourners comforted her. She resisted when asked to release the body of one of the babies ahead of burial. “Leave her with me,” she said, in a low voice.
Abu Anza said she had given birth to the twins, her first children, after 11 years of marriage.
“We were asleep, we were not shooting and we were not fighting. What is their fault? What is their fault, what is her fault?” Abu Anza said.
“How will I continue to live now?”
Of the 14 people killed in the Abu Anza house, six were children and four were women, according to Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the hospital where the bodies were taken. In addition to her husband and children, Rania also lost a sister, a nephew, a pregnant cousin and other relatives.
Farouq Abu Anza, a relative, said about 35 people were staying at the house, some of whom had been displaced from other areas. He said they were all civilians, mostly children, and that there were no militants among them.
Israel has not commented on the strikes, but officials have previously said the country works to minimize civilian casualties in its fight against Hamas.
Rania and her husband, Wissam, both 29, spent a decade trying to get pregnant. Two rounds of IVF had failed, but after a third, she learned she was pregnant early last year. The twins were born on Oct. 13. Her husband, a day labourer, was so proud he insisted on naming the girl after himself, she said.
“I didn’t get enough of them,” she said. “I swear I didn’t get enough of them.”
The members of the Abu Anza family killed in the strike were lined up in black body bags. A man wept over the body of one of the dead, a child wearing pajamas. “God have mercy on her. God have mercy on her,” said another man, consoling him.
Israel says it works to mitigate civilian harm
Rania said she had been wishing for a ceasefire before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which begins around March 10. U.S. President Joe Biden has expressed hope one will be agreed by then.
“We were preparing for Ramadan, how am I supposed to live my life? How?” she said.
The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas stormed Israel, in an attack that left about 1,200 people dead and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 30,000 people in the Gaza Strip since then, according to health authorities in Gaza.
Israeli airstrikes have regularly hit crowded family homes since the start of the war in Gaza, even in Rafah, which Israel declared a safe zone in October but is now the next target of its ground offensive. The strikes often come without warning, usually in the middle of the night.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on the Hamas militant group because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense residential areas. The Israeli military on Sunday didn’t comment on this attack but said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
At least 17,000 children are now orphaned or separated from their parents in Gaza, UNICEF says, and encounter daily, repeated trauma from which they are unable to flee.
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