Jimmy Carter's "peace partners" claim an Israeli missile killed a peaceful Palestinian family who were sitting down to breakfast in northern Gaza on Monday. The media reported the Palestinian version but facts are emerging which raise questions about the heartbreaking story told by the Palestinians. Reuters (alert - this account contains Palestinian propaganda): At least seven Palestinians, including a mother and her four young children, have been killed during an Israeli raid in northern Gaza, medics say.
The family members were killed when a missile hit their home in Beit Hanoun. In separate incidents, a militant and a farmer were killed.
The children were aged between one and six years old, the medics said.
The Israeli military said its aircraft had attacked a group of gunmen who had fired at an army patrol in the area.
The area is often used by Palestinian militants to launch rockets at Israel.
Clashes between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian militants on Sunday in nearby Beit Lahiya left a 14-year-old girl dead and eight others injured.
On Friday, the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, proposed a six-month "period of quiet" in Gaza, which it said could then be extended to the West Bank.
Israel dismissed the proposal as a ruse to allow Hamas to "re-arm and re-group". Israeli ground forces moved into the Gaza Strip early on Monday morning and entered Beit Hanoun, not far from theborder.
During the incursion, a missile smashed through the ceiling of one family's one-storey house while they were having breakfast, witnesses said.
A mother and four of her children - two girls and two boys aged between one and six - were killed, doctors at a local hospital said.
"I left the house just moments before to look for one of my children. I heard the sound of the explosion, and when I returned to the house I found my wife and my children," said 70-year-old father Ahmed Abu Maateq.
"They had been eating breakfast and my wife had been holding our youngest child in her hands," he said. .
No photos of the missile damage to the house? I've been searching the wires and can't find any. Seems to me those photos would pretty easy to get. Hmmm.
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The Jerusalem Post has an unofficial source who says the woman and children were killed after IDF soldiers opened fire on two gunmen carrying explosives.
The Palestinian mother and her four children who were killed Monday during IDF ops in Beit Hanun were not hit by a tank shell but rather were killed when ammunition carried by gunmen exploded, Army Radio quoted an IDF source as saying.
According to the unofficial source, the forces operating in the Gaza Strip town identified two gunmen who were carrying large bags. When the soldiers opened fire on them the bags exploded, causing the deaths of the family members.
Above photo (REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah) shows a wounded Palestinian being taken to a hospital in northern Gaza on April 28, 2008.
