Despair, anger after air strike kills children

The missile struck after dark, as Palestinian families were putting their children to bed. The residential area of Gaza City was home to mil...

The missile struck after dark, as Palestinian families were putting their children to bed. The residential area of Gaza City was home to militant leader Salah Shehada, the target of the Israeli strike, but also to hundreds more Palestinian families.

An F-16 fighter jet swooped over the rooftops, firing a single missile which slammed into the houses, killing two babies, six children and three adults, including Shehada.

‘‘We were sitting at home with the children when suddenly we heard an explosion,’’ said Naim Abed Ali Fahel, a middle-aged man. ‘‘We heard a sound of falling stones and glass. Then it stopped and we made our way out through the people’’. Relatives screamed and wailed as workers searched the rubble of five houses for survivors, using searchlights to guide them.

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Blood-covered children were dragged from the debris and carried out above the frantic crowd. A child’s leg dangled broken over the side of a stretcher. An elderly woman, covered in concrete dust, was carried dazed into an ambulance. Large parts of walls were missing from some buildings and huge holes yawned in others.

Officials at Gaza Shifa hospital said 154 were wounded in the strike, and 15 were in serious condition.