Abu Quta, 57, thought he and his extended family would be safe some hundred meters (yards) away from the house that was alerted to the pending strike, AP reported.
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The evacuation warning came shortly after dark. The Israeli military fired the shot just a short distance from Nasser Abu Quta’s home in the southern Gaza Strip, a precautionary measure meant to allow people to evacuate before airstrikes.
He huddled with his relatives on the ground floor of his four-story building, bracing for an impact in the area.
But the house of Abu Quta’s neighbor was never hit. In an instant, an explosion ripped through his own home, wiping out 19 members of his family, including his wife and cousins, he said. The airstrike also killed five of his neighbors who were standing outside in the jam-packed refugee camp, a jumble of buildings and alleyways, AP reported.
The army says that it conducts precision strikes aimed at militant commanders or operation sites and that it does not target civilians. It also points to its adversaries’ practice of embedding militants in civilian areas throughout the impoverished coastal enclave of 2.3 million people, which is under a under a severe land, air and sea blockade by Israel and Egypt.
But human rights groups have previously said that Israel’s pattern of deadly attacks on residential homes display a disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians and argued they may amount to war crimes.
In past wars and rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants, individual Israeli airstrikes have killed great numbers of civilians — for instance, 22 members of the same family. AP
