Palestinian journalist loses wife and four children in Israeli bombardment of refugee camp: “I wish I had been killed with them”

At least 45 people have been killed in an Israeli bombardment of a refugee camp in southern Gaza, according to Hamas. A Palestinian cameraman from the French news agency AFP is said to have lost not only his wife but also four children in the bombing.

The Israeli Air Force bombed the refugee camp in al-Maghazi on Saturday night. According to various sources, several homes were hit where hundreds of people were seeking shelter at the time. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, at least 45 fatalities have already been counted, mostly women and children.

Palestinian cameraman and photographer Muhammad Al-Alul of the French news agency AFP is said to have lost his wife and four children – three daughters and a son – in the bombing, but only one son is said to have survived the explosion.

“I wish I had been with them, and that I had been killed with them,” Al-Alul told the British public broadcaster BBC. “I was working when I heard that a bombing had hit the Al-Maghazi camp, but it didn’t dawn on me that my children might be under the rubble.”

“Safe” south

According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees UNRWA In the refugee camp just south of the Gaza River, more than 33,000 people live together in an area of ​​barely 0.6 square kilometers, mainly people who have fled from the north of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army has repeatedly called on the people of the Gaza Strip to move south from the north so that it can fight Hamas in the north. According to a spokesperson for the Israeli army, the attacks on the southern half of Gaza are not targeting civilians, “but unfortunately that does not mean that no deaths can occur,” it said. “It is heartbreaking when that happens, but the war was started by Hamas.”

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” a rescue worker told the BBC. “They ask the Palestinians to go south, but they kill them everywhere: on the roads, in the schools where people are sheltering, even in the hospitals.”