Kuwait Times

Published Date: December 30, 2008

JABALIYA, Gaza Strip: Anwar Baalusha was sleeping when the mosque next door collapsed onto his house after an Israeli air strike. Beneath the rubble, he found the bodies of his five daughters. The metal roof of his modest abode crumbled under the stones of the bombed mosque, which Israeli aviation hit late Sunday in this refugee camp in the north of the Hamas-run territory. Five of the Baalusha girls - four-year-old Jawaher, eight-year-old Dina, 12-year-old Samar, 14-year-old Ikram and 17-year-old Tahrir -
perished under the ruins.

They became the latest civilian casualties of a massive Israeli bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, unleashed on Saturday in response to rocket fire from the overcrowded enclave. Himself wounded in the strike, 37-year-old Anwar left the hospital to take part in the funeral of his daughters. Leaning on two relatives, his body covered with wounds and bruises, he limped along in a sombre, hundreds-strong funeral procession that inched its way down the windy streets of the camp towards the cemetery
.

We were sleeping when I heard an enormous explosion and all of a sudden the mosque crashed on top of us," he said. "My wife and I slept in one room with my 18-month-old son and my 15-day-old daughter, while the other seven girls slept in another," he said. "The neighbours pulled us from the rubble." His voice shaking with emotion, he gives vent to his anger. "If a single Israeli child was killed, the whole world would be indignant and the UN Security Council would meet," he says. "The blood of our childre
n has no value in the eyes of the world. This is a war crime, the enemy's leaders should face justice.

The mourners carry on their shoulders the five bodies wrapped in green Hamas flags, chanting slogans as they make their way to the burial ground. They ask for God's help against "Israel, America and all those who are conspiring against the people of Gaza." Before being put into the earth, the smallest body, that of Jawaher, is put for a few moments on the rubble of the mosque whose stones crushed her.

One of her uncles, 40-year-old Nafez Baalusha, then takes the lifeless body into his hands. "This is a cowardly act carried out by Nazi occupation forces," he hurls, tears in his eyes. "I hope that it will at least serve to break the silence of the Arab countries that are Israel's accomplices. Their mother is suffering from a nervous breakdown and is hospitalised with what remains of her children.

One of the neighbours, Hani Abu Yussef, says that ambulances were delayed by a power cut. "We were able to force an opening in one of the walls and pull out the parents and the smallest children, but we couldn't find the other girls because of the dark," he says. Another neighbour says he "heard moaning under the rubble". "We started to search among the ruins and found one girl still alive, then the bodies of two others in pyjamas. Then we found three other bodies under a blanket in the corner of the room.
The massive Israeli bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza has killed at least 345 people, including 57 civilians, according to medics and UN figures. At least 21 of the dead are children, they say. - AFP